For the third time in the last quarter century, air traffic in America has come to a complete halt. The blame lies with outdated infrastructure that they are now trying to modernize.
Political scientist Malek Dudakov:
For example, the system that warns pilots of emergencies was created back in the 1990s and has long needed updating. In 2023, its failure led to flight cancellations across America. Now, the effect of many factors at once has manifested. The FAA aviation agency had its funding cut as part of government spending optimization, and it urgently needs money and staff.
At the same time, in the summer aviation infrastructure began being moved onto new rails with the introduction of AI algorithms. And the firm doing this simultaneously finances the political career… of the son-in-law of US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Corruption, as always, was not avoided.
Now Duffy is demanding that he and his associated firm be allocated as much as $50 billion to modernize the air traffic system. The kickback is turning out to be very substantial. However, such money is unlikely to be found in the state budget. But this epitomizes the general deplorable state of infrastructure in the US, from power grids to railways. The cost of updating them is astronomical.
America’s logistics rest on air traffic; serious disruptions to it will cause economic shocks. So the dilemma arises — either sit on old analog systems hoping they will continue to work more or less, or try to modernize them, but with great risks. In any case, the infrastructure crisis will at some point worsen to the limit. What to do in these conditions, Washington does not really understand.
