Almost thirty aviation lobby groups and unions have called on the US government to increase its investment in air traffic control (ATC) infrastructure in order to maintain safety across the country’s national airspace system (NAS).
The 26 organisations from across the industry sent a joint letter to members of Congress on 16 July, urging the legislators to better support the Federal Aviation Administration in sustaining and modernising the system, after alarming gaps have come to light in recent years.
“We respectfully request authorisers and appropriators work with the FAA and all stakeholders to support the system through direction and predictable appropriations, derived primarily from the [Airport & Airway Trust Fund] AATF to help ensure the FAA has an updated plan in order to effectively use the resources necessary to continue to grow the NAS safely and efficiently,” the letter reads.
Aviation accounts for more than 5% of gross domestic product, and therefore has “a unique economic importance”, the groups say.
The FAA has come under fire in recent months after numerous safety incidents highlighted critical deficiencies in staffing, technology and infrastructure nationwide. Participants say that is a result of a lack of funding by the US Congress, and that this underinvestment could someday have disastrous consequences.
“The effects of underinvestment in [the FAA’s facilities and equipment capital programme] are becoming strikingly clear,” the organisations write. “One consequence is that the necessary maintenance of existing systems is being neglected. FAA switched to a ‘fix-on-fail’ model … and has not returned to a model of preventative maintenance. A recent example was the 2023 NOTAM outage that resulted in complete closure of the NAS for the first time since 9/11.”
On 11 January 2023, an FAA computer system which provides pilots with NOTAM safey information failed, prompting a 90min nationwide ground stop directly affecting 11,000 flights, and leading to widespread disruptions in commercial air traffic across the USA.
The system had to be completely shut down and re-booted. Initially, experts had feared it might have been a cyberattack, but the FAA later said the outage was a result of “unintentionally deleted files”.
It was the most egregious of recent incidents involving computer system malfunctions broadly impacting US airline operations.
Numerous close calls between moving aircraft on the ground have also highlighted ATC staffing issues in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Last year, an independent review committee had found the NAS and air traffic control organisation at “significant risk” for accidents as a result of the lack of funding.
The NAS also suffers from severe infrastructure problems. In 2017, a review of the conditions at each of the FAA’s 23 Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC) showed that just three of the facilities “could be classified in ‘good’ condition”.
”These and other FAA air traffic control facilities have exceeded their expected lifespan,” the letter reads. ”Every ARTCC and more than a quarter of all FAA facilities are at least 50 years old, with many in need of replacement.” The costs for improvements to these facilities far exceeds the regulator’s budget.
“It’s encouraging to see virtually every sector of the aviation industry, from the airlines to general aviation, unite to support needed reforms and investment in the FAA’s modernisation effort,” adds Mark Baker, president of Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, a general aviation lobby group.
“Ensuring the FAA has the tools it needs is the best way to guarantee the US maintains the safest and most robust air traffic system in the world.”
In its letter, the coalition also says several future-oriented technology projects such as its NextGen multi-decade effort to modernise the air transportation systems, are also at risk. Not only will that cause more delays for airlines and their customers, it is also a blow to the industry’s efforts to reduce its greenhouse gas footprint.
“The deployment of key NextGen programmes has been delayed by deployment slowdowns during Covid that compounded the effects of a tight budget,” the letter says. “The FAA has sought industry’s support in identifying opportunities to reduce the number of navigational procedures to better manage the agency’s budget that supports the maintenance of these procedures.
”Not operationalising these programmes will mean reduced airspace operational efficiency - negatively affecting the travelling public and other civil and military users of the system, as well as failure to achieve improvements in fuel burn and reduced emissions or implementation of safety tools for pilots and controllers.”
