Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy mentioned he’ll work to curb chaos at Newark Liberty Worldwide Airport this week after Tuesday’s delays.
“We’re rolling a plan out on Thursday. We’re going to need a lot of money from Congress to do this. It’s not going to take 10 years, like Pete suggested,” Duffy mentioned throughout his Tuesday look on CNN, referring to the community’s aviation correspondent Pete Muntean.
“It’s going to take three to four years to get this build-out done. You can’t snap your fingers and lay fiber or bring in new radios or new radars. Those things take time,” he added.
Duffy mentioned Newark’s challenge with two-hour delays stemmed from outages attributable to previous infrastructure, which hindered air visitors controller communication with incoming and outgoing flights.
He famous that most of the nation’s airports might face comparable issues however mentioned difficulties can be swiftly addressed.
“We’re going to put the time and the money in, and you’re going to start to see results sooner than three or four years as this build-out happens,” Duffy mentioned.
The Transportation secretary outlined an overhaul for air visitors controllers Monday, days after Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) launched a price range reconciliation proposal that will allocate $15 billion for the modernization of air visitors management expertise.
Duffy instructed CNN that he additionally expanded the capability for college students on the major air visitors controller academy and can supply controllers who keep on previous their retirement date 20 % bonuses up entrance per 12 months.
“And with those two things together, I can’t do it tomorrow. I can’t do it in a month. But over the course of the next year and two years, you’re going to see the pressure come off the controllers because we’re focusing on the experienced end and the trained-up and resolve this problem,” Duffy mentioned.
