US Transportation Secretary Duffy requests an additional $30 billion budget for airport infrastructure

US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced that he will request an additional $30 billion from Congress to renew air traffic control towers, software and digital infrastructure, and airport facilities.

Announcing the plan in his speech in Washington, according to Reuters, Duffy said, "We will ask Congress for $30 billion. We need to look at how the country has changed and what the needs are at the airports."

Congress approved a budget of $12.5 billion for a five-year period in June 2025 within the scope of air traffic control reforms.

While Duffy continued to demand additional billions, he sought a separate $10 billion fund for airports.

A major telecommunications glitch that halted traffic along the East Coast for hours and disrupted thousands of flights on Monday made the budget request more urgent.

Approximately 10 billion dollars of the requested resource will be allocated to the renewal of aging air traffic control towers, and the other 10 billion dollars will be allocated to telecommunication and technology systems used in air traffic control.

Part of the budget will be spent to expand the new software-based system that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) started using on Monday, which uses predictive analytics to improve flight management.

A government report released last week emphasized that Congress would need to approve more funding just to complete the first phase of the air traffic control program.

The report also noted that the FAA should better calculate the operating cost of the new system.

According to the report, the cost of telecommunications infrastructure upgrades increased from $4.75 billion to $5.91 billion.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford stated that outdated copper telecom lines should be completely replaced by September 2027.