America’s skies are running on floppy disks and copper wires from the 1980s. Travelers are paying the price.
Newark Liberty International Airport has been melting down, an air traffic controller facility in Colorado had a communication outage, and Atlanta’s airport also ground to a halt last week. The chaos at Newark and Atlanta, two of America’s busiest airports, highlights what United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby calls a “broken system” in desperate need of an upgrade. The FAA issued ground stops at both hubs due to equipment issues and telecommunications failures — problems that have become increasingly common as the agency struggles with outdated technology, staffing shortages, and management issues.
The Trump administration unveiled its solution last week with a “Brand New Air Traffic Control System Plan.” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the plan requires all funding upfront, not in piecemeal tranches. “One of the problems in the past is when you give small tranches of money year over year, politics change, leadership changes, presidents change... and it never gets built,” Duffy said at a news conference. While the administration hasn’t specified a total price tag, the $12.5 billion already passed by the House is described as a “down payment,” with industry groups estimating the true cost closer to $31 billion.
Newark’s issues run particularly deep. The airport has been in a state of near-constant disruption since late April, when air traffic controllers briefly lost radar access — a terrifying moment that prompted controllers to take emergency leave under federal compensation rules. United, which accounts for about 70% of Newark’s traffic, has been forced to cancel dozens of flights daily.
Kirby placed the blame squarely on a 2016 FAA decision to remove “slot controls” at the airport, a scheduling mechanism that limits how many flights can take off or land each hour. “It was a mistake to de-slot the airport,” Kirby wrote in a Fox News op-ed. “Every single data point says so.”
A Colorado facility overseeing flights across much of the West lost communication for about 90 seconds before service was restored, though the FAA said operations were unaffected.
At Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson — the world’s busiest airport — a Mother’s Day ground stop lasted until noon due to “a runway equipment issue,” delaying more than 600 flights. The disruption affected thousands of travelers at one of the nation’s key transportation hubs, with the FAA only saying that technicians were “working to address the problem.”
Meanwhile, staffing remains a critical issue, with Newark particularly hard-hit. The airport has 22 air traffic controllers, significantly less than a target of 38, according to the FAA. Newark moved its air traffic control to Philadelphia last year with the hopes of easing recruiting in a cheaper area than the New York City metro. But on Monday, three controllers were on shift when the target was 14, causing delays of up to seven hours, according to The New York Times.
The stakes for air safety were made clear in January when an American Airlines regional jet collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, killing all 67 people aboard. In March, a National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) investigation revealed an alarming pattern: There was at least one “close call” each month between commercial planes and helicopters at DCA over a 13-year period.
Between late 2021 and 2024 alone, the NTSB identified more than 15,000 “close-proximity events” between aircraft. “This was not an isolated incident, but a symptom of broader failures in our aviation safety system,” families of the January crash victims said in a statement after the NTSB report, which highlighted many of the same issues plaguing Newark.
The Brand New Air Traffic Control System Plan seeks to address these issues through comprehensive technological upgrades. Priorities include replacing 25,000 analog radios with VoIP systems, upgrading primary radar configurations, and retiring “dozens of bespoke information-display systems still running on floppy disks and CDs.”
But critics argue the plan throws money at symptoms without treating the disease. Aviation blogger Gary Leff calls it “a band-aid” that “rewards failure with more money” while failing to address the FAA’s structural problems. Unlike NavCanada — Canada’s nonprofit air traffic control system that is decades ahead technologically — the FAA both regulates itself and provides services, creating what reformers see as a fundamental conflict of interest.
“The FAA’s Air Traffic Organization has no accountability because the same agency writes safety rules and runs the system,” Leff said in a blog post. The first Trump administration attempted similar reforms along the lines of Canada’s model but couldn’t overcome political resistance despite support from the air traffic controllers.
As summer travel season approaches — typically the busiest and most profitable quarter for airlines — the industry is watching nervously to see if the administration’s technological band-aid will arrive in time to prevent Newark’s problems from spreading throughout America’s increasingly fragile airspace.
—Jackie Snow, Contributing Editor