The Trump administration hopes to upgrade and replace the nation's entire air traffic control system, with President Trump saying Thursday morning that he'll work with Congress on a bill to that end.
Billionaire Elon Musk, a special government employee in charge of the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency task force, said Wednesday that his DOGE team will work to make "rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system." On Capitol Hill Thursday morning, Mr. Trump suggested Congress should fund a completely new air traffic control system, in the wake of last week's Blackhawk helicopter-commercial plane midair collision near Ronald Reagan National Airport that killed 67.
The president said he and congressional leaders will sit down and "do a great computerized system for our control towers, brand new," rather than trying to improve the current system.
The president suggested the current air traffic control system is a patchwork of technology and companies, and instead, just one or two companies and one set of equipment should function throughout.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also said this week the the administration is going to make sure the U.S. has the most innovative, technologically advanced air traffic control system. That's the mission of the Federal Aviation Administration, Duffy said.
As CBS News has previously reported, less than 10% of the nation's airport terminal towers have enough air traffic controllers to meet a set of standards set by a working group that included the Federal Aviation Administration and the controllers' union, according to a CBS News analysis of FAA data.
Posted by John3262005
9 Comments
100% this is the broligarchy saying “we can just have AI run it all”
So he has no idea how air traffic control works or what the problems are and just decided he’s going to rebuild it. Because really the biggest problem is they’re understaffed. Hiring freezes and efforts to purge the federal workforce aren’t helping.
Way to destroy the US global leadership on aviation regulation and control.
Step 1: create a problem
Step 2: appear to solve that problem by replacing existing rules and regulations with exact copies under a different name
Step 3: half the country adores you
I’m sure that will work about as well as his self driving cars.
> when it’s done, you’re not going to have accidents
Just like before Trump became president.
This isn’t necessarily a bad idea in theory, but do I trust the guy whose company’s self-driving technology can’t figure out the difference between a curb and a driveway entrance to implement it? Fuck no.
Not a bad idea but you can’t trust doge to do it, would have to be contracted out to bidders
Is he going to focus on efficiency or the FAA?
These people need to fucking get out of government.
They’re going to cause something terrible to happen