In a rare move that reminded many Americans of 9/11, the FAA issued a nationwide ground stop on all departing flights in the United States on Friday afternoon. There were more than 10,000 delays and over 4,000 cancellations listed Friday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. Flights in the air were allowed to continue to their planned destinations.
The issue…Decades old analog air traffic control hardware.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stood at the White House podium and said:
“𝘞𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘛𝘋𝘔 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮, 𝘴𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘨 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮. 𝘖𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴, 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘰𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘶𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯.”
Duffy went on:
“𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘴𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘐𝘗 𝘴𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘨𝘰 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯. 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯.”
Congress had handed the FAA $15 billion over the last 25 years that had produced almost no change in the equipment used by air traffic control. Keep in mind that floppy disks are still in use in some places in the air traffic control system. The system is dangerously antiquated.
Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill allocated $12.5 billion to equipment upgrades and it is currently expected to complete on schedule. New equipment already in place did not go down during this outage.
Over 3,500 planes were airborne when the ground stop hit. Duffy says every one landed safely under standard procedure before the FAA reopened the airspace Friday night. The chaos that happened — thousands of cancellations, families sleeping on airport floors — was the cost of hardware Washington kept patching instead of replacing.
Every senator and congressman should go on record within the next 24 hours and tell the American people if they are willing to fund a clean, stand-alone bill to revamp the air traffic control system.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy torched an NBC reporter who tried to pin a nationwide FAA ground stop on the Trump administration.
Duffy:
“When we had all—global leaders were flying in for the UN, we had a similar issue. We had an issue in Newark, it happened twice. How many times does this have to happen before Congress gives the money to fix it?”
“Well, because the Congress has to give it to us, right? And you need a—well, oftentimes, that’s a great point, oftentimes you need a bipartisan vote. Right, so I did get partial funding through one big beautiful bill. I got twelve and a half billion. And with that money we are spending it and spending it well. But the Congress at the time knew that that was not going to be enough. By the way, this is bipartisan, but on that bill I didn’t have Democrats that voted for it. We now have an opportunity in an emergency funding bill before the end of the year to give the money.
“And I think the question should be from NBC to every member: do you support actually modernizing, making a state-of-the-art air traffic control system? And it’s going to take us some time, I can’t snap my fingers and build a network overnight. But do you want us to build this for America? And I think every member of Congress should say yes, but every American, I guarantee, would tell those members, yes, give President Trump, give Duffy the money, let them finish this job so we don’t have to do a press conference at 8:30 at night ever again.”