Senator proposes $30bn bill for air traffic control and airport upgrades

Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, introduced the Modern Skies Act on Monday. The bill proposes $30 billion in additional spending on air traffic control technology and airport infrastructure, and it puts into legislative form a funding request Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy detailed the previous week.

The Transportation Department says the money would be split into three programs of $10 billion each. One would pay for ATC digital architecture, covering telecommunications, traffic-flow management and the FAA's SMART airspace-management system. A second would go to airport infrastructure, including control towers, facilities and runways. The third would set up a grant program aimed at airports that handle between 5 million and 25 million passengers a year.

Congress has already approved $12.5 billion for the FAA's modernization program. The agency has spent that money on items such as new radios, fiber-optic telecommunications and surface surveillance equipment.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in a Transportation Department statement that the earlier $12.5 billion was a critical down payment for replacing outdated infrastructure, but that the agency cannot stop at simply swapping out old technology.

The new request arrives as the FAA pushes ahead with plans to replace the current ATC system. A recent GAO report found the agency still does not have a complete lifecycle cost estimate or an integrated master schedule for the effort. Telecommunications failures in recent months have also drawn attention to how much the National Airspace System depends on aging communications infrastructure.

According to the Transportation Department, nearly 60 aviation organizations back the Modern Skies Act, among them the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the Air Line Pilots Association and the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. The bill now goes to Congress for its consideration.