The Trump administration pledged to “radically transform” air traffic control following telecommunications and equipment issues at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON), according to US Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy.
The move follows an incident on April 28, 2025, when TRACON controllers lost access to systems that help direct aircraft to Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), leading to numerous flight cancellations and delays.
“The primary communication line went down, the backup line didn’t fire and so for 30 seconds we lost contact with air traffic control [at Newark airport],” Duffy said in a Fox News interview on May 6, 2025, which he later shared on X.
Duffy stated that air traffic at Newark airport has been slowed as a result of the incident. At the time of writing on May 7, 2025, 41 flights have been cancelled and nine have been delayed at the airport.
“When you have an incident like this, you want to make sure that people are safe and so you just have less departures out of the airport until we feel comfortable and safe that the system isn’t going to go down again,” Duffy continued.
In a press conference by the White House, Duffy noted that several government reports published during the past four years have indicated that the US has “real problems with air traffic control.” He mentioned that the previous administration allocated US$1.2 trillion, calling it the “largest infrastructure package ever known to man.”
Biden and Buttigieg celebrated their infrastructure bill. 1.2 TRILLION dollars. The largest infrastructure package known to man.
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) May 6, 2025
They claimed it was going to change America.
They spent less than 1 percent of the money on fixing our air traffic control system.
They ignored… pic.twitter.com/FWc2KCpKAr
However, Duffy pointed out that only US$5 billion from this total was designated for upgrading the air traffic control system, and of that, US$1 billion was actually spent.
“They [the Biden administration] have made no investments in the system we now see having issues in Newark,” Duffy said. “Instead, they spent their time injecting social justice and climate equity crap into everything.”
“Donald Trump and I are going to fix this,” Duffy shared in a later post on his X feed. “Last week, I unveiled the US Department of Transportation’s plans to supercharge our air traffic control workforce, and we have way more to come.”
On May 1, 2025, Duffy launched a new initiative aiming to boost the air traffic controller workforce. The FAA plans to hire at least 2,000 controllers in 2025 due to this enhanced hiring effort, which raised the starting salary for FAA Academy trainees by 30%. Duffy also simplified the hiring process, reducing it from eight steps to five.