Aviation sector presses Congress for emergency air traffic control funding

Leaders across the U.S. aviation sector are calling on Congress for emergency funding for the nation's strained air traffic control system.

In a letter Wednesday, major airlines joined forces with unions representing pilots, flight attendants and air traffic controllers — along with the American travel industry's top lobbying group — calling for swift action on the heels of two major accidents involving U.S. airlines.

"We are united in our grief over recent aviation accidents and our commitment to making sure accidents like these never happen again," the letter to congressional leaders, viewed by TPG, said.

Nationwide, the aviation sector has drawn heightened scrutiny following the Jan. 29 midair collision between an American Airlines regional jet and a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). Sixty-seven people died in the accident, making it the worst crash involving a U.S. airline in nearly 16 years.

This week, 21 people were injured when a Delta Air Lines regional jet crashed and flipped upside down upon landing in Toronto. All passengers and crewmembers survived the harrowing accident.

While crash investigators have not linked either accident to failings in air traffic control thus far, a nationwide shortage of controllers and antiquated control tower technology have long caused concern throughout the aviation sphere.

The Federal Aviation Administration faces a significant shortage of air traffic controllers, and a late-2024 government watchdog's report revealed critical deficiencies of key FAA systems.

In Wednesday's letter, the alliance of airlines, labor and industry leaders called for "robust emergency funding" for critical air traffic control technology and controller hiring, staffing and training.

"We urge you to protect and build upon the baseline investments in the law to enhance safety in the air and on the ground," the letter read.

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The group also called on Congress to make the FAA exempt from government shutdowns, which have disrupted key hiring and training processes several times over the last decade, contributing to the shortage currently faced in our control towers.

Any decision to allocate more funding to the FAA would hinge on congressional approval and a signature from the president — and would supplement the multiyear FAA reauthorization bill passed by Congress last spring.

It's not yet clear what appetite there would be for stepped-up agency funding among lawmakers.

"Air traffic control modernization would make everyone safer and it is the right thing to do, but there are other lessons to be learned from this," Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas and chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, said last week on Capitol Hill, reacting to the Jan. 29 crash.

"Now is the time to ask questions about what we can do to further enhance aviation safety," the committee's ranking member, Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, said Tuesday.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump called for "a single bill" focused on air traffic control modernization. The call comes as questions swirl about the involvement of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, as well as recent layoffs at the FAA — which Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said affected fewer than 400 probationary employees but "zero air traffic controllers and critical safety personnel" in a recent post on X.

While speaking to TPG last week, the top government relations official at one major U.S. airline said the carrier was optimistic recent momentum could lead to air traffic control reforms.

"The industry's come together to say this is our number one priority," Rob Land, JetBlue's head of government affairs, said Feb. 11. "In the past, over the last few decades, it's been very hard to get our industry, which is super competitive, to agree on anything, let alone we have a number one priority we all agree is number one."

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