Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday said that the rolling out of a brand-new air traffic control system should take three to four years to complete.
“The root evil of all of these projects is time,” Duffy said in an exclusive interview with FOX Business’ Grady Trimble, noting that there will continue to be stories about outages and issues until the new system is in place. “I don’t have 10 years to wait.”
One of the main reasons the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not yet updated its antiquated air traffic control system is because of the difficulties surrounding switching to something new.
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“The complication of keeping airplanes in the airspace safe as you build this new system around the old system becomes very complicated,” Duffy said, noting that any switch will be made in stages and over a period of time. “I’m not going to jeopardize safety as we do this. It’s going to be choreographed. It’s going to be timed, it’s going to be tested.”
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The decades-old air traffic control problem, which has been exacerbated by antiquated equipment and staffing shortages, is a largely bipartisan issue, he said. Some Democrats, like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., have made comments accusing the White House of “breaking the FAA.”
“You can’t destroy the air traffic control system in 100 days,” Duffy said. “It’s been aging over the course of decades. The last administration did nothing.”
When it comes to managing the new air traffic control system — which the transportation secretary announced Thursday at a news conference — companies will be able to submit bids. Verizon, AT&T and defense contractor Raytheon are likely to get involved, Duffy said.
While some of these companies previously had contracts with the FAA, Duffy said communication will be different. He said he will not accept anything less than “speed and excellence” from the companies they decide to work with.
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“When you engage companies at the top level, at the CEO level, and you have issues, actually things happen very, very quickly,” Duffy said.
While air traffic control issues have made headlines recently, like at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport where traffic controllers lost radar and radio communication with aircraft, Duffy insists that the industry is still safe. There are “hundreds of small failures each week” that go unnoticed, he said.
“It’s frightening for people, but again, we have backups to that,” he said. “I will tell you, throughout the system every week, we have blips in the system.”
The Pentagon also temporarily suspended military helicopter flight operations near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport after near-misses. In January, 67 people were killed when a Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines flight collided in the same airspace.
“Let’s figure out how we can make sure travelers are safe in the [Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport] airspace, but also how we can continue to do our work to make sure we keep our nation’s capital safe,” he said.
Entering the busy summer travel season, Duffy said there could be greater delays and cancellations due to congestion. His priority is always to make sure travelers arrive at their destinations safely.
“If we see any issues in the airspace, we slow it down,” he said.
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