“We have the knowledge and the plan for the air traffic control systems — we need Congress to allocate the funds, and do it quickly,” Donald Trump said on Truth Social.
Donald Trump urged Congress on Sunday to quickly approve funds to modernize the United States air traffic control system following a major technical failure that grounded flights nationwide, [milenio.com] reported. The system outage on Friday triggered a total suspension of takeoffs that lasted for four hours, an emergency measure applied only three times this century.
The disruption left about 12,000 flights grounded on Friday, including 9,000 commercial flights. By Sunday, residual delays and cancellations continued to disrupt major hubs across the country, causing travel backlogs for thousands of passengers.
FlightAware tracking data showed 1,569 cancellations and 2,737 delays by 10:00 Eastern time on Sunday. The cascading disruptions followed Friday’s ground stop, which initially forced aviation authorities to pause all departures nationwide. Among the hardest-hit facilities were O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in Texas, and Boston Logan International Airport.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy expressed confidence during an interview with NBC on Sunday that regular scheduling would resume shortly. “By the end of the day today, or at the latest tomorrow, I think we’ll be back to normal,” Duffy told NBC.
Trump criticized the previous administration led by Joe Biden as a disaster for American aviation, pointing to delayed infrastructure upgrades as the root cause of the vulnerability. The current administration has formally requested 30 mil 100 millones de dólares from lawmakers to overhaul the aging aviation network.
“If Congress approves the funds that are urgently needed for air traffic control, we can build the system quickly and efficiently,” Trump wrote on social media, adding that the administration has already started preliminary work.
Duffy ruled out a cyberattack as the cause of Friday’s ground stop. He pointed instead to ongoing maintenance work replacing legacy copper cabling with fiber optics within the telecommunications systems that support air traffic management.
The maintenance work is tied to L3Harris, a contractor providing services to the Federal Aviation Administration for two decades. Duffy confirmed that authorities are continuing to investigate the exact technical trigger behind the failure.
- Van Hollen Accuses Schumer Team of Spreading Misinformation in Senate Leadership Race
- Saudi Air Defenses Intercept Houthi Missiles Targeting Riyadh
- Microsoft's Windows 11 hidden performance boost trick can ironically slow your system down (newsylist.com)
- Eric Trump-Backed Robot Startup Fails to Pay Employee Salaries (archyde.com)