Duffy calls for emergency air traffic upgrade runds after outage

Will Guisbond, Bloomberg News on Nov 13, 2026

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WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called on Congress to authorize $50 billion in emergency funding to overhaul the U.S. air traffic control system after a technical issue spawned the longest nationwide grounding in more than two decades.

“This is an emergency,” Duffy said at a White House news conference on Friday. He recently asked for about $30 billion to continue funding his agency’s project. “I want Congress to give us emergency funding. This is bipartisan. This is American. I want $50 billion.”

Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the outage was caused by older routers being overloaded with data after new software patches were installed throughout the system, but that personnel are still investigating.

It resulted in “intermittent” issues with air traffic control communications, as well as with radar feeds that are used to guide aircraft, Duffy said.

At the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, Duffy unveiled a multibillion-dollar plan to modernize and then upgrade the aging ATC infrastructure after a midair collision near Washington killed 67 people in January 2025.

Duffy later that year secured $12.5 billion to kickstart the project, but clinching more funds has proven to be a politically fraught task even considering the issue has bipartisan support. His department wrote a letter, co-signed by the Office of Management and Budget, to re-up a standing $30 billion request this week.

So far, the FAA has made progress in modernizing communications lines, radar systems and equipment used by air traffic controllers.

Duffy said the newer equipment installed as a part of his modernization plan was not affected during the outage, but that more money is needed to build new facilities and completely replace all outdated technology.

Friday’s widespread disruption, which will take days for airlines to recover from, is one of several that have beset the nation’s aviation system in recent years. However, only the multi-day fallout from the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks resulted in a grounding longer and more disruptive than this one.

The failure Friday evokes recent memories of chaos in September when a fiber optic cable was cut by construction crews, triggering a cascading havoc that hit airports across the Northeast.

In 2023, a relatively brief outage of the FAA’s safety notification system for pilots and dispatches resulted in a 90-minute nationwide grounding.

(Jeff Mason and Courtney Subramanian contributed to this report.)