Delta is celebrating our 100th year this year, and while as an airline we continue our century-long legacy of innovation, dedication, and excellence, that has not been the case when it comes to our nation’s air traffic control system (ATC).

Aviation remains the safest mode of transportation in the U.S., but for it to remain so, serious upgrades must happen now.  Our country’s air traffic controllers should not be operating with 50- and 60-year-old equipment, including floppy disks and physical strips of paper. Improving technology is not only critical for a 21st century airspace, but for recruiting the air traffic controllers of the future.

Over the past decade, Delta has invested billions of dollars in our hubs across the country. 

In that time, New York’s LaGuardia airport has gone from the worst airport in the country to one of the best, but the ongoing ATC constraints nationwide and particularly in the New York airspace continue to hold Delta and all airlines back operationally. 

Airlines plan their network and schedules based on our customers’ needs with the assumption of FAA equipment running correctly.  It becomes very disruptive when outages and equipment failures occur without notice – as only a few minutes of downtime can ripple into a large-scale customer impact event. 

Aviation is an industry of innovation, and the FAA needs the ability to quickly procure the best equipment and transformational technology solutions to efficiently and strategically handle 21st century flight volumes.

President Trump and U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have proposed a transformative plan to overhaul the country’s antiquated ATC system, while simultaneously streamlining the ATC training process and offering recruitment and retainment incentives.

Delta supports the Secretary’s proposed framework plan to overhaul and update the ATC system while working to get more controllers into the pipeline, and we are encouraged by the $12.5 billion in modernization funds included in the budget reconciliation bill making its way through Congress.  This is a unique and once in a lifetime opportunity for the aviation industry, Congress, and the administration to come together and take our country’s national airspace system to new heights through investment and innovation. 

Today there is widespread support from industry to modernize ATC like we’ve never seen before. The Modern Skies coalition, of which Delta and our trade association Airlines for America are members, contains more than 50 aviation stakeholder groups, all of whom are telling Congress that now is the time to act, and to embrace bold and decisive action to ensure that we do not squander this opportunity to fund and enhance aviation safety and efficiency.

Nothing is More Important than Safety

At Delta, nothing is more important than safety. We will continue to work alongside the FAA and our industry partners to find solutions that minimize delays and cancellations due to a strained ATC system, and we will never compromise on safety or operate into airspace or at airports where it is unsafe to do so.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian joined The Today Show on May 15, 2025 for an exclusive interview to discuss the current state of air travel and Delta's support for modernizing the air traffic control system (video below).

Bastian joined DOT Secretary Sean Duffy and other aviation stakeholders at a press event on May 8, 2025, where the Secretary announced his proposal to modernize the air traffic control system (video below).