Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Shares Update On FAA Equipment Modernization Rollout

During Monday’s press briefing at Newark Airport, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy spoke about modernization of FAA equipment.

Transcript

00:00Ramsey Khalifeh with WNYC, the local NPR station.

00:02So two questions.

00:03You said that Verizon took up a lot of that work to make the replacements to lay down cable.

00:08Did they do that between Long Island and Philly?

00:10Like how many miles of cabling is that really?

00:12So that was between the Philly Tracon Inn and New York, yes.

00:16How many exact miles?

00:18I don't know.

00:19But, again, as the crow flies, I'm not sure if you went as the crow flies, but it's miles.

00:25And, again, they did it very quickly.

00:27And what about the other technology?

00:29Obviously, that's something that the DOT has proposed that needs to be completely changed across the country.

00:34But that continues to age.

00:36So what effects are we going to see if that doesn't happen more immediately?

00:41So, again, the equipment's been working, right?

00:44But we're starting to say I'm driving my car and I'm hearing some knocks.

00:48I got some smoke coming out of the back.

00:49I see I got some problems.

00:51And it's incumbent upon us to tell America we have problems and it has to be fixed.

00:56And so in the big, beautiful bill, there's $12.5 billion to start this project.

01:04Big deal.

01:05I believe the Senate's going to provide more dollars for us also.

01:09We'll see what they do.

01:10But the failure of the past has been the FAA has gotten small tranches of money, not full funding.

01:19We need full funding.

01:20We need the money up front so we can contract out and build this brand-new system across the country.

01:25That's been one problem.

01:27Usually the FAA deals with middle management.

01:31FAA projects get done at the bottom of the list normally, and they take forever.

01:36Frankly, they rarely get done.

01:38We are dealing at a CEO level as we're thinking through who's going to come in and partner with us in this project.

01:47So the buy-in is way different in this project.

01:50The money is going to be way different.

01:52And the final point is we're going to need permitting reform because this has to happen fast.

01:57And, again, we're not building a six-lane thoroughfare.

02:02We're not building skyscrapers.

02:03We're going to lay fiber.

02:05And so hopefully the Congress will work with us on that as well.

02:07And hopefully we'll get it by, you know, end of July or August.

02:12But, Tom, are we going to get this by the end of July or August?

02:15By July 1.

02:17Tom says July 1.

02:18I can't wait.