On Heels of Ground Stop, Duffy Demands $50 Billion Fix

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy demanded $50 billion from Congress for a comprehensive modernization of air traffic control in the wake of a nationwide ground stop on Friday afternoon. At a news conference on Saturday morning, Duffy said they’re still trying to figure out who to blame for series of cascading failures that led to the second total shutdown of the system in three years. So far the investigation centers on the routine installation of a new router in Chicago as part of the conversion of copper wire internet connections to fiber optic.

The new server began overwhelming equipment in Chicago and a few other ATC facilities with connection requests and as that introduced instability in the system to the point the FAA determined it needed to shut the whole thing down for safety. The focus of the investigation is now on whether it was incompetence on the part of the contractor, L3 Harris, or the router itself was faulty. Duffy’s $50 billion demand is a $20 billion increase over a request to Congress earlier this year. He didn’t elaborate on where the extra money would go.

Meanwhile FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said most flights were cancelled for Sunday while airlines moved aircraft and crews to where they should be. More than 4,000 flights were cancelled and 10,000 delayed on Saturday.

The post On Heels of Ground Stop, Duffy Demands $50 Billion Fix appeared first on AvBrief.com.