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Duffy Unveils the Plan for a Brand New Air Traffic Control System, May 8, 2025

May 8, 2025 · US Department of Transportation · 1:48:31

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy held an event for a brand new air traffic control system, in the Department of Transportation’s upload of the May 8, 2025 announcement, before what he described as 55 different groups — industry, unions, political leaders, airline CEOs, and family members of the victims of the DCA air crash — supporting the effort with one voice, as he stated the gathering. President Trump joined by phone and announced the complete rebuilding and modernization of America’s air traffic control system, as he stated the commitment on the call: fully replacing the technology at more than 4,600 air traffic control sites, building six new state-of-the-art air traffic control coordination centers, purchasing 25,000 new radios and replacing hundreds of old radars, installing 4,000 new high-speed network connections by fiber, satellite, and wireless, and installing 174 new weather stations in Alaska, as the President stated the plan’s components. The federal government, he said, now pays $250 million annually just to keep the old equipment running.

Duffy then laid out the build case as he stated it: the system runs on copper wires and radar from the 1970s, technology about 50 years old; Newark, he said, is the preview of what happens elsewhere if the rebuild is not done. His timeline, as he stated it, is three to four years — closer to four — and it requires two things: all the money upfront from Congress, rather than small yearly tranches that die with changing leadership, and permitting reform. Without them, he said, the same project takes 10 to 15 years and the technology is already old when it is finished.

Why it matters

May 8 is the founding document of the air traffic control rebuild: the full component list stated by the President himself, a three-to-four-year timeline, and the two conditions — upfront appropriations and permitting reform — on which the Secretary publicly staked the schedule. Every Newark update and funding figure paged on this site through the summer descends from this announcement.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard candidate: the brand new air traffic control system plan announced May 8, 2025 — 4,600+ sites rebuilt, six new coordination centers, 25,000 radios, 4,000 network connections, and a stated three-to-four-year timeline contingent on upfront congressional funding. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of Transportation, “Secretary Duffy Holds Event for a Brand New Air Traffic Control System” (official upload, embedded above). Remarks and figures as delivered by President Trump, by phone, and by Secretary Duffy at the event.