Funding Crucial To Make It Happen Within 4-Year Timeline

U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy told members of the House of Representatives that the cost of rebuilding the nation’s air traffic control system will run a total of $31.5 billion, and it is crucial the funding is available to accomplish it within the 3-to-4-year timeline originally announced in May.

In order to be completed, the project will require more than 25,000 new radios, 475 new voice switches, and replacement of 618 radar systems. The recently passed budget reconciliation bill included $12.5 billion to get the project started.

At a House Transportation and Infrastructure committee meeting this week, Duffy told lawmakers, “We will need more (money) to do it… We’re talking $31.5 billion dollars to do the full project and my hope is that we’ll have an additional conversation about how we can do that. I think time is of the essence.”

When House members questioned the timeline to accomplish all that needs to be done, Duffy noted that the software is “the heart of the system” and will require companies to come in and sell their wares.

“It’s like you’re on your computer, you’re using Microsoft 95 versus what’s available today, there’s so much better technology, and this is the heart of making the system more efficient and safer,” Duffy said. He estimated 6-8 months to select the vendor, then another 6-10 months to debug it before it’s ready to be deployed.

Regarding ATC communications upgrades, Rep. Julia Brownley (D-CA) expressed concern about a conflict of interest involving SpaceX employees consulting with the FAA. Duffy stressed that those employees were sealed off from anything space-related.

Duffy said, “I knew that everyone would be concerned about SpaceX coming to the FAA, and what we did was specifically guardrail them off from anything in space. What they really did was they came and looked at our air traffic control system. They talked to controllers; they talked to our tech people. They actually saw what equipment air traffic controllers were using.”

FMI:  www.transportation.gov/