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Secretary Duffy Amplifies Historic Effort to Modernize Our Skies
April 21, 2025
Millions of Americans headed to the airport and boarded planes — some were taking off on business trips, and many were taking off on vacation or visiting family for Passover or Easter. And amid the busy spring travel period, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy took to the airwaves with two main messages: he reiterated that flying is the safest way to travel, and he doubled down on his commitment to upgrading the nation’s airspace system.
“[Flying] is the safest form of travel. Again, way safer than even trains or cars,” the Secretary said on “Fox and Friends” last week. “We are striving to say how can we make air travel even more safe.”
President Trump and Secretary Duffy have been actively providing vision and leadership to present a new plan that would upgrade our nation’s air traffic control towers, moving from floppy disks and paper strips to 21st-century technology.
“The air traffic control system is so old, this is something that Donald Trump has not talked about for two months, he’s talked about it for years,” Secretary Duffy said. “He knows how antiquated it is. He said hey, listen, build a brand-new, state-of-the-art air traffic control system that will maximize efficiency in the airspace.”
At the National Prayer Breakfast in February, President Trump said, “We’re all going to sit down and do a great computerized system for our control towers—brand-new, not pieced together, obsolete like it is land-based, trying to hook up land-based system to a satellite system… And we spent billions and billions of dollars trying to renovate an old, broken system instead of just saying cut it loose, and let’s spend less money and build a great system done by two or three companies, very good companies, specialists. That’s all it is.”
A wide coalition of aviation stakeholders fully support the Trump Administration’s efforts to ensure that the United States has the staffing, equipment and funding needed. The coalition is calling on Congress to move with urgency to act once the Trump Administration formally announces their plan.
“Air travel is the safest mode of transportation in the country – you can’t travel anywhere safer than on an airplane,” Secretary Duffy said in an interview with Fox Business. “We’re working our hearts out to make sure everything is safe, more air traffic controllers and we have a better air traffic control system, new investments, and again it’s going to take us time to undo what wasn’t done over the last four years.”
Carriers have made remarkable changes and meaningful investments in technologies, operations, product and people. The government needs to do the same in an organized and timely way.
President Trump also said, “We’re going to have the best system, and it’s a lot of money, but it’s not that much money.”
U.S. airlines deeply appreciate the leadership and dedication from President Trump and Secretary Duffy to invest in and upgrade our nation’s air traffic control systems. U.S. airlines stand ready to collaborate on this historic effort and bring meaningful change to our skies that will benefit the millions of Americans who fly every day and ship goods around the world.