US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has asked Congress for additional money to modernize the nation's air traffic control system, putting the cost of long-deferred infrastructure upgrades back at the center of the federal aviation agenda.

The request, reported by WUSA9, comes as the Federal Aviation Administration confronts mounting pressure over the reliability of its control infrastructure. The agency's networks of radars, radio transmitters and data-processing systems — much of it dating from the 1980s and 1990s — have drawn scrutiny from lawmakers, airlines and regulators following a string of high-profile outages and safety incidents.

Duffy, who oversees the FAA through the Department of Transportation, has framed the modernization effort as a matter of capacity as much as safety. Aging automation systems constrain how the agency can manage traffic flows, forcing routine ground stops and reroutes during weather events and equipment failures. Carriers absorb those disruptions as delays and cancellations, with knock-on effects on aircraft utilization and crew scheduling across the national airspace system.

The secretary's appeal for fresh funding follows earlier moves by the administration to accelerate equipment replacement, telecommunications upgrades and controller hiring. Whether Congress appropriates the additional money will determine the pace at which those programs move from procurement to deployment.

For airlines, the stakes are operational and financial. Every hour of ATC-related delay ripples through tightly planned schedules, and carriers have repeatedly argued that infrastructure shortfalls — not their own operations — drive a growing share of disruption during peak travel periods. Modernized surveillance and data communications would in principle allow more precise aircraft spacing and more direct routings, raising effective airspace capacity without adding runways.

The FAA's modernization portfolio has a long and uneven history. Past programs to replace en-route automation and controller display systems have run years behind schedule and over budget, and lawmakers have grown wary of open-ended commitments. Duffy's request will test whether recent attention on air traffic control reliability can translate into sustained appropriations rather than one-off supplements.

The funding question also carries workforce implications. New systems require retraining for controllers already stretched thin at busy facilities, and the agency's hiring pipeline must keep pace with both retirements and the technology transition. Congress has previously funded controller staffing increases, but the equipment side of the ledger has lagged.

Duffy's appeal positions ATC modernization as a federal priority for the current budget cycle. The next signal will come from appropriators, whose response will set the timeline for replacing equipment that controllers now depend on daily.