Even for casual readers of the news, the last few years point to a troubling trend for U.S. aviation safety. Outdated hardware, troublesome software, and a continued shortage of trained air traffic controllers has meant reduced staffing levels resulting in periods of ATC Zero, in which there are no controllers at a facility. All this has led to more near misses, runway incursions, communication equipment failures and, most seriously, the first major airline midair collision in decades.
It was no surprise, then, that the modernization plan announced in May by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is focused on replacing outdated equipment, upgrading technology and resolving the staffing shortages.
To be sure, these are all serious problems that must be addressed. The ATC system is already stretching its capacity limits as it handles some 45,000 flights each day. Advanced air mobility companies are on the verge of beginning passenger service, which will add tens of thousands of air vehicles. Commercial space launches and recoveries are now occurring in untraditional locations, shutting down swaths of airspace for hours. While the pace continues to increase, each places a high burden on the ATC system — and that’s exactly why Duffy’s plan doesn’t go far enough.
The current process for ATC modernization is to slowly and appropriately make small improvements that can be incorporated into the airspace system — effectively, attempting to patch problems as they emerge over time. There is nothing wrong with that approach per se, but what’s missing is the overall vision for something new that will not only accommodate the future of air travel we see coming, but also be able to adapt beyond that.
My vision? A future in which ATC stands for Automated Traffic Control. In this reality, air traffic management will be based upon aircraft talking to each other — without someone on the ground controlling them. When we get down into the urban environment with advanced air mobility vehicles and drones, where line-of-sight communication is restricted, this will be the only solution. Here, interactions are happening too close, too quickly, for there to be a human in the loop. Certainly, human oversight of the operating picture should be part of the system, but real-time separation and sequencing could be done by onboard electronics directly.
This may seem a daunting task, but ATC has remade itself before. After World War II, ATC consisted of towers at selected airports that sequenced airplanes for takeoff and landings and air route centers that monitored aircraft as they radioed in positions along their filed flight plans. These plans were tracked on strips of paper that included their filed flight plan information and expected time to the next reporting point. The strips were passed from controller to controller as each flight progressed.
In 1956, two airliners departing Los Angeles minutes apart on their way to different Midwest airports collided over the Grand Canyon, even though they had filed different routes and different initial altitudes. In response to this tragedy, Congress created the FAA and put it in charge of establishing an effective ATC system. Leveraging technology from WWII, the agency installed radar tracking to monitor aircraft and expanded communication to cover the entire country.
In the 1960s, aircraft were equipped with transponders and computers were introduced with traffic monitoring. Jet aircraft flew faster and higher than before, and ATC handled 13,000 flights per day. The paper strips remained but were now typed on computers rather than being handwritten.
As traffic increased, the U.S. introduced new aircraft equipment to assist in avoiding collisions. In the 1980s, the government mandated the Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) in larger aircraft. Upgraded computers and advanced software were installed at ATC en-route centers and later at ATC approach control facilities. The paper strip data was now displayed electronically on controllers’ screens.
As of 2020, the majority of aircraft were required to be equipped with Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast Out transmitters, so their GPS position could be viewed by surrounding aircraft. A bill introduced in Congress in response to the January collision of a Black Hawk helicopter and regional jet over the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., will mandate ADS-B In (Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast In) for airspace where ADS-B Out was mandated.
Yet even as air traffic increased, qualified air traffic controllers remained in short supply. The 1981 Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization strike and decertification resulted in the firing of over 11,000 controllers. COVID-19 shut down the FAA’s Training Academy in Oklahoma City for four months in 2020, before instruction was able to resume at half capacity to comply with exposure restrictions. In 2024, there were 1,100 fewer controllers than in 2021, and hiring is barely outpacing retirements. My local airport has gone ATC Zero for five days over the last month, downgrading the facility to “uncontrolled.”
Balanced against these concerns and equipment upgrades is the continued growth of air travel. Following the COVID-19 downturn, airline travel quickly rebounded and exceeded pre-COVID levels. Anticipated growth at an annual rate of about 3.4% will result in a doubling by the early 2040s to over 400,000 aircraft movements per day globally. The rise of advanced air mobility could add 200,000 eVTOLs to the global fleet by 2040.
So we need a transition plan, sooner rather than later. Whatever it consists of, having such a plan defined would allow the FAA and industry to begin developing the technology to solve the missing pieces that are currently unavailable to reach deployable milestones.
Here are some of those needed technologies: A secure upgrade to ADS-B could include position data even in GPS-denied areas, along with planned flight paths and aircraft classification. Advanced algorithms could use this data to make adjustments in each aircraft to ensure appropriate safety clearances are met. Advancements in flight deck displays could advise human pilots of potential conflicts and suggest corrective action. Machine learning could be employed to ensure arrival gates will be available before takeoff. Those iconic paper strips would only be seen in museums.
There are teams and organizations working to define what ATC could look like in 2050, but they must coalesce on a concept soon so there can be global agreement on the transition path that will drive the technology development and international deployment. Further postponement of determining a suitable and reasonable future ATC scheme only supports maintenance investments that are random versus purpose-driven to back the coming aviation evolution.
