JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Two Southwest Airlines jets narrowly avoided colliding with each other in midair over - near Nashville over the weekend. It's the latest close call to focus attention on the nation's strained aviation system. Today, the Trump administration gave an update on its ambitious plan to overhaul the air traffic control system. NPR's Joel Rose has been following all of this and joins us now. Hi.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.
SUMMERS: So, Joel, tell us about today's event. What was it like?
ROSE: This was not your standard briefing behind a podium. It has been almost a year since leaders at the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration promised what they are calling a brand-new air traffic control system, and they really put on a big show today to try to play up their progress. They used slick videos. They touted how much copper wire they've replaced with fiber-optic cables, how many analog radio systems they've replaced with digital ones.
The FAA even brought in physical examples of old technology, these giant radar and communication systems from the 1980s, trying to make the case that they've made a lot of progress, replacing this old technology to make the system more reliable so that there are not the kind of breakdowns in radar and communication that happened last year at Newark Liberty International Airport, for example, when air traffic controllers lost contact with planes multiple times, and that led to major delays and disruptions that then rippled out across the whole country.
SUMMERS: OK, so why put on this big show now?
ROSE: I think, fundamentally, because they need more money. Congress gave the administration $12.5 billion last year, but that money is largely targeted at new equipment. The administration's also pushing to hire more air traffic controllers, which the system clearly needs because it remains several thousand controllers short of full staffing.
Still, the administration has said it will need roughly another $20 billion to complete this overhaul. And one of the things that they want that additional money for is software. They say all this new equipment will make the air traffic control system more reliable, but they're also talking about making it now more efficient and possibly making some pretty fundamental changes to how the system works.
SUMMERS: Fundamental changes. So what's the administration proposing? What could those changes be?
ROSE: So the FAA is talking about modernizing the way it manages air traffic using predictive analytics software. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford laid out the case for what he calls strategically managed air routing systems. Bedford says they could be key to making our airspace more efficient.
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BRYAN BEDFORD: We will finally be able to unlock flying from New York to LA in less time that it takes to do it today. And that is the win - less fuel burn. Less cost to actually have airplanes sit on the ground.
ROSE: Basically, Bedford says these software systems can look at all of the flights taking off on a given day and tweak their departure times to reduce the number of conflicts, both in the air and, critically, when they line up to land at their destinations. In theory, Bedford says, that should relieve some of the workload on air traffic controllers. The head of the controllers union was on hand today. He said that these innovations would not be competition for air traffic controllers, but instead could be, quote, "force multipliers."
SUMMERS: And, Joel, how close is all of this to actually happening?
ROSE: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said today the administration has been talking to three potential vendors, although he did not name them. But obviously a lot of unanswered questions still about how this analytics software would work, including how you would train air traffic controllers to work on a new system while also operating the one we currently use and, of course, whether Congress will actually find the billions of dollars it would take to pay for this.
Congress has given the FAA lots of money to update air traffic systems in the past without a whole lot to show for it. The DOT is trying to make the case that things have changed and that this time is different. Secretary Duffy said, again today, the department is on track to finish the work that Congress has funded so far by the end of 2028.
SUMMERS: NPR transportation correspondent Joel Rose, thank you.
ROSE: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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