US subcommittee hearing details a need for investments in current ATC system

A US House of Representatives subcommittee heard from a panel of witnesses on March 4, 2025, about a need to invest in modernising and adequately staffing the US air traffic control (ATC) system.

In recent weeks, both President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have backed new investments in ATC facilities technologies and hiring. This comes as a recent spate of aviation incidents in the US has thrown the current ATC system under scrutiny, most notably after An American Airlines jet crashed into the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport outside of Washington, DC, after colliding with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter on January 29, 2025, causing 67 fatalities. 

Most recently, a Southwest Airlines flight was forced to abort its landing at Chicago’s Midway Airport on February 25, 2025, after a business jet entered the runway without ATC clearance. 

The committee was notified that as of January 22, 2025, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) had 10,791 certified professional controllers, which is 2,371 below the present FAA target and 3,544 below a collaborative resource workgroup target.

Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NACTA), stated the importance of the sustained maximum hiring of air traffic controllers for years to come, and agreed with Duffy’s intent to train the “best and brightest” controllers.

“NATCA remains focused on improving the system-wide controller staffing shortage. A properly staffed controller workforce is necessary in order to safely and efficiently meet all of its operational, statutory, and contractual requirements,” said Daniels.

Daniels also said that the FAA is also spending an additional $7 million per month just to maintain legacy copper wire as they delay the fibre optic upgrades due to insufficient funding. He noted that other FAA programs will continue to suffer funding cuts if this program is not adequately funded.

At a minimum, the FAA is said to need $212 million just to sustain current surveillance systems, as many components of legacy radars are past their end-of-life cycles and are no longer manufactured.

The US Government Accountability Office told the committee on transportation and infrastructure that after the 2023 outage of its Notice to Airmen system, the FAA conducted an operational risk assessment to evaluate the sustainability of all its ATC systems. The assessment determined that of its 138 systems, 51 (37%) were unsustainable and that 40 systems had been deployed over 30 years ago.

The FAA Reauthorisation Act – signed into law last year – also included provisions to promote controller hiring and technology improvements