Major Aviation Overhaul in America: Insights from the Summit

The U.S. Department of Transportation this week converted the atrium of its Washington, D.C., headquarters into a first-of-its kind exhibit featuring decades-old aviation equipment—and the new technology that is replacing it. 

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy hosted hundreds of aviation partners and industry leaders at Tuesday’s Modern Skies Summit, touting major upgrades to the nation’s air traffic control system.

“This is truly the largest overhaul in aviation since the jet age,” Duffy said. 

Thanks to funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill, the Federal Aviation Administration is upgrading and replacing wiring, communication equipment, radars, and electronic flight strips.

FAA Acting Chief Technology Officer Rebecca Guy outlined changes to the four areas alongside Justin Ciaccio, president of Peraton’s National Aerospace Solutions section. 

• Wires: The FAA is replacing thousands of miles of copper wires dating back to the 1960s with high-speed fiber-optic lines. More than 50% of the copper network has already been replaced, which will prevent outages and ensure communication is secure across the entire system. 
• Communication equipment: Radios provide communication links between air traffic controllers and pilots, but antiquated equipment has led to static, crackling, and missed words. FAA officials said more than 3,000 radios have already been upgraded, with over 20,000 new radios scheduled to be installed by the end of 2028. 
• Radars: Many radar systems in use today were installed in the 1970s and are increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain. Under the modernization plan, more than 600 radars will be replaced to improve aircraft separation and traffic management. 
• Electronic flight strips: Many control towers still rely on paper flight strips to track aircraft movements. The FAA plans to digitize that process, with 89 towers expected to implement electronic flight strips by the end of 2028. This will reduce errors, improve efficiency, and ease controller workload. 

With the new equipment in place, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford highlighted the importance of supercharging the air traffic controller pipeline.

A record 8,000-plus people have applied for jobs in the troubled U.S. air traffic control system ​in the first 13 hours of a recruitment drive focusing on ‌individuals who enjoy playing video games, Duffy said earlier this month. 

The FAA, facing a shortage of controllers in towers across the U.S., opened applications at midnight on April 17 to ​fill more positions, Duffy said. 

After ​12 hours, the FAA had received some 6,000 ⁠applications. Posting on X later in the day, he said a total of ​8,004 applicants had filed in 13 hours, a rate of 10 every minute, marking ​the fastest pace ever for applicants seeking jobs as U.S. air traffic controllers. 

Duffy said 7,252 of those applicants met basic qualifications, though they would still need to go through a rigorous assessment process. 

“We’ve ​had a flood of young people coming in who want to be air ​traffic controllers,” Duffy said at the conference, calling the Trump administration’s effort to enlist people who ‌are video ⁠game enthusiasts “wildly successful.” 

Duffy said his team surveyed a group of current controllers and learned that most of them play video games, prompting the department to recruit from that “community,” he said.  

“If you think just what these gamers are doing on the screens, and they’re talking and there’s a lot of things going on. They’re used to that, and that’s actually what you’re doing in a tower,” he said. 

The U.S. air traffic control system is stretched thin. Many controllers are working mandatory overtime and six-day weeks, and the FAA’s air traffic control training academy has faced serious problems with retaining students.  

The workload for controllers is also growing. Between 2015 and 2024, total flights using the air traffic control system increased by about 10% to 30.8 million, according to the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. government’s auditor. 

Reuters contributed to this report.