FAA Nationwide Ground Stop Exposes Aging Air Traffic Systems and a Fight Over $50 Billion in Funding

At 3:36 on Friday afternoon, radar and communications links inside the nation's air traffic control system began to falter. The Federal Aviation Administration responded with a rare step: a nationwide ground stop, halting takeoffs across the country. Thousands of passengers were stranded, and delays spread widely enough that airlines and airports were still working to recover as the day ended.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy laid out the cause for reporters at the White House that night. Old routers, he said, became overloaded with data, and the equipment that carries radar and other air traffic communications started to fail. The failures were not universal, he said, but they were pervasive enough to justify stopping departures nationwide.

The administration did not speak with a single voice on one point. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, standing alongside Mr. Duffy, said officials had seen "zero evidence" of a cyberattack. He suggested that new equipment and technology added by Mr. Duffy's department to the old infrastructure may have been what overwhelmed it. Mr. Duffy rejected that account. He insisted the culprit was the antiquated legacy communications gear, not recent upgrades.

Mr. Duffy was blunt about what he sees as the underlying problem. "What we have is an incredibly old air traffic control system," he said, and until significant upgrades are made, "it's going to continue to fail." He has long pushed for a sweeping overhaul and often complains that controllers are hampered by outdated tools. On Friday he cited "old, old switches, old routers" and "1980s little copper lines." Only the week before, the F.A.A. had announced it was beginning to phase out floppy disks.

Recovery, he warned, will take time. "I believe that it's going to take us some time to get back to capacity," he said, adding that there would be "some makeup to do." He predicted schedules would be fully normal by the start of the Thanksgiving travel season. In the meantime, the F.A.A. will give priority to larger commercial flights over private and charter flights as it works to get grounded aircraft moving.

Money is where the argument sharpens. Last year Congress approved $12.5 billion for upgrades to aging air traffic facilities and networks, and some of that has gone toward communications systems. Mr. Duffy noted that facilities already converted to digital systems did not suffer the overload that led to the ground stop. But he called a system built on a "patchwork" of upgrades and fixes untenable.

For months he has asked the Republican-controlled Congress for another $30 billion to speed the work. On Friday night he raised the figure to $50 billion and demanded it before the end of the year. "This is an emergency, I want Congress to give us emergency funding," he said. "How many more times does this have to happen for Congress to give the money to fix it?"

The path is uncertain. Control of Congress shifts to Democrats after the year ends, and they are expected to scrutinize how the F.A.A. has used the air traffic money it has already received. Republican lawmakers have filed bills in the House and Senate to authorize $30 billion for upgrades, but neither has any cosponsors.

Later Friday, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House's top Democrat, turned the blame back on the White House. He called the breakdown "the latest in a series of unacceptable air travel incidents under the Trump administration's failed leadership" and said travelers deserve timely answers about how and why it happened, plus assurances the system will remain safe and functional. Whether the cause is settled, and whether the money moves before the year ends, are the questions to watch.