Outdated air traffic control system strands and delays Californians

People flying in and out of Los Angeles, Burbank, San Diego, San Francisco, and other airports across the state experienced frustrating delays caused by seemingly minor tech issues on the other side of the country earlier last week. It also reminded everyone that America’s air traffic control system runs on outdated equipment funded by a dysfunctional Congress.

Part of the air traffic control system that helps guide planes in and out of Philadelphia, Newark, and other busy Northeast airports had an aging telecommunications circuit fail. A backup fiber-optic line should have taken over, but a construction crew had already accidentally cut it. With some communications lost, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) halted flights at major airports like Newark Liberty and John F. Kennedy International, leading to more than 1,000 cancellations and thousands of delays on Monday, Sept. 21.

Airlines, airports, and air traffic control are interconnected, so the East Coast problems rippled across the country, contributing to over 1,000 delays at LAX, San Diego, San Francisco, and other airports across California.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the incident is that the failed circuit was already known to need replacement, yet the FAA hadn’t gotten to it yet. Last year, Congress, through taxpayers, gave $12.5 billion to the FAA’s modernization program, with upgraded telecommunications being a major component.

Yet, the day after the outage, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the FAA needs tens of billions more to fix air traffic control. Duffy is right that the system needs significant investment to totally modernize. But sending more taxpayer money through the same system and bureaucracy that is already decades behind is unlikely to produce better results.

An even deeper problem is how the system is organized and managed. The FAA has a conflict of interest: it provides air traffic control and oversees itself on aviation safety. The air traffic system is also subject to the whims of Congress and the White House. Decisions about upgrading technology depend on competing budget priorities and political horse-trading.

Most of the world has moved on from this model. In 1987, New Zealand became the first country to separate air traffic control from its safety regulator. It created a government-owned corporation that pays for itself through direct fees from aircraft operators for the services they use, with an independent regulator that oversees safety. Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom have done versions of the same thing.

With predictable revenue via user fees, an air traffic control utility like this can borrow against future user fees and pay for major technology upgrades all at once, instead of waiting for politicians to approve funding in pieces over years or even decades.

Reason Foundation finds 96 countries now use some version of this approach, including nearly all industrialized nations. Countries using this model have moved faster to replace the paper strips controllers used to track individual flights with digital alternatives, monitor planes by satellite over oceans and remote areas, and to use digital towers at airports that give air traffic controllers a better view at lower cost.

Meanwhile, the FAA has yet to finish rolling out any of these technologies and hasn’t even started on some of them. The FAA’s current approach is to make one-time upgrades, with no strategy for the next round of replacements that will inevitably be needed.

California’s travelers, airports, businesses and economy would all benefit from a better air traffic control system that can modernize facilities and equipment on a regular schedule, before it fails and doesn’t leave passengers grounded as they try to get from Southern California to the East Coast because of a bad circuit or cut cable.

A version of this column first appeared in the Orange County Register.

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