From floppy disks to flight delays: Top lawmaker warns US air system is due for a reboot

A starring lawmaker from the nation’s astir interconnected aerial question authorities warned that outdated exertion – similar "floppy disks" – and ongoing aerial postulation power (ATC) crises astatine cardinal hubs are compounding the request to overhaul the U.S. aerial question system.

Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, who besides sits connected the Aviation subcommittee connected the Senate Commerce and Transportation Committee, spoke to Fox News Digital exclusively connected Wednesday arsenic the situation mounted, astir precocious successful the Philadelphia ATC sector; specifically astatine Newark-Liberty International Airport.

The Last Frontier has the slightest miles of roads per capita and hundreds of communities wherever aerial question is the lone comparatively realistic oregon reliable mode.

Sullivan said that it is not lone successful his state’s involvement to spot specified an overhaul, but that – conscionable arsenic the Philadelphia assemblage has seen issues arsenic of precocious – the Anchorage aerial postulation power hub itself controls idiosyncratic formation patterns astir anyplace betwixt Chicago and Tokyo.

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Bering Air crash, left, Sen. Sullivan, center, EWR, right (NTSB, Getty, Getty)

"We assistance the full state erstwhile radical are traveling from the Lower 48 implicit to Asia," helium said.

"What we request to bash is we request to preemptively code challenges earlier they go tragedies," said Sullivan, who spoke retired likewise astatine a commerce proceeding with NTSB and FAA officials earlier this year.

He besides cited a February rider airliner clang successful his ain state, erstwhile a level went down connected Norton Sound's oversea crystal aft leaving Unalakleet for Nome, sidesplitting 10.

"What happens, unfortunately, is excessively often calamity is what inspires and motivates reform," helium said, adding that the Department of Transportation should and apt will, nether Secretary Sean Duffy, pivot to "predict[ing] and preempt[ing]."

On a caller circuit of the Anchorage center, helium spoke to FAA workers and saw however they, similar different sectors, trust connected 20th-century floppy disks and "strips of insubstantial that are similar post-it notes."

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Crash of Bering Air 208B adjacent Unalakleet, Alaska. (NTSB)

"What we don't want, unluckily – it's happened – is person a large clang and calamity arsenic the happening that inspires change," helium said, placing the blasted astir precocious connected the Biden administration, successful part, for appearing to prioritize diverseness implicit substantive reforms astatine USDOT.

"I watched this: Hiring radical for the FAA successful presumption of aerial postulation controllers is competitive. It requires existent schooling. It requires precocious performance. And the Biden squad came in, and I conjecture successful the sanction of diversity… they started taking radical disconnected the thoroughfare virtually with nary inheritance successful immoderate of this. We’ve got to get backmost to the rigorous FAA standards," helium said.

He said helium spoke with Duffy connected Tuesday and predicted "a truly large broad betterment program" successful the weeks and months to come.  

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Newark Airport successful New Jersey (Getty)

"We person the safest aviation strategy successful the world, but that doesn't hap done magic. That happens done diligence, done upgrading our technology."

While not straight addressing the concern successful Newark, Sullivan praised the Trump administration’s "outstanding" effect to the Unalakleet clang and predicted the Department of Transportation would grip the Newark-Liberty incidental successful a likewise effectual manner.

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has defended his tenure, writing connected X that "we enactment information first, drove down adjacent calls, grew [ATC] and had zero commercialized hose fatalities retired of millions of flights connected our watch."