After flight shutdown, Trump administration raises air traffic control modernisation request to $50 billion
After a major communications failure in the United States air traffic control system halted thousands of flights across the country for several hours, the Trump administration has raised its funding request to modernise the sector to $50 billion.
The increased demand was made by the administration on Friday night, November 13, local time.
Earlier on Friday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the White House had requested $30.1 billion to upgrade America's ageing airports and air traffic control system.
Against the backdrop of the unprecedented flight shutdown, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said: 'This is an emergency. What could be more important than having a working air traffic control system?'
Friday's technical fault affected the Federal Aviation Administration's en-route centres, which mainly control flight movements in the airspace between airports. The outage forced authorities to issue a nationwide departure halt.
Several major accidents and disasters have occurred in recent years in this, the world's most complex airspace, raising concerns about passenger safety.
In January 2025, 67 people were killed in a mid-air collision at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington.
In September this year, a circuit failure in Philadelphia and a fibre-optic cable cut during construction work in New Jersey also caused thousands of flights in the Northeast to be cancelled or delayed.
According to the information, the FAA still relies on decades-old computers and parts bought from auction websites.
Just last week, the agency said it would replace by the end of 2028 the old floppy disks used to exchange weather and emergency information at more than 400 air traffic control centres.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, in a letter sent to lawmakers, urged quick approval of the money.
The letter said the FAA has already replaced 68 percent of its old copper telecommunications network with high-speed fibre infrastructure. It said this investment is essential to finish the remaining work and to build modern hardware, software and control towers.
In the initial $30.1 billion proposal announced earlier on Friday, $10.1 billion was sought for air traffic control modernisation, $2 billion for control tower construction and $18 billion for airport-related projects including renovation of old terminals.
Congress had already approved $12.5 billion for this sector over five years in July 2025.
Major US airlines including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines have welcomed the administration's funding request.
But the Republican-controlled Senate Commerce Committee said Friday's incident proves that modernising en-route centres must be prioritised over other projects. It also noted that Congress has already approved $1.9 billion to replace the old centres.
Democrats are set to take control of the US Congress next January. Before that, the Trump administration is desperate to get this huge funding passed through the current Republican-controlled Congress in the last few weeks of the year.
