Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he will work to curb chaos at Newark Liberty International Airport this week after Tuesday’s delays.
“We’re rolling a plan out on Thursday. We’re going to need a lot of money from Congress to do this. It’s not going to take 10 years, like Pete suggested,” Duffy said during his Tuesday appearance on CNN, referring to the network’s aviation correspondent Pete Muntean.
“It’s going to take three to four years to get this build-out done. You can’t snap your fingers and lay fiber or bring in new radios or new radars. Those things take time,” he added.
Duffy said Newark’s issue with two-hour delays stemmed from outages caused by old infrastructure, which hindered air traffic controller communication with incoming and outgoing flights.
He noted that many of the nation’s airports could face similar problems but said difficulties would be swiftly addressed.
“We’re going to put the time and the money in, and you’re going to start to see results sooner than three or four years as this build-out happens,” Duffy said.
The Transportation secretary outlined an overhaul for air traffic controllers Monday, days after Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) released a budget reconciliation proposal that would allocate $15 billion for the modernization of air traffic control technology.
Duffy told CNN that he also expanded the capacity for students at the main air traffic controller academy and will offer controllers who stay on past their retirement date 20 percent bonuses up front per year.
“And with those two things together, I can’t do it tomorrow. I can’t do it in a month. But over the course of the next year and two years, you’re going to see the pressure come off the controllers because we’re focusing on the experienced end and the trained-up and resolve this problem,” Duffy said.
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