We Were Warned By PATCO Strike, Out-of-Date Air Traffic Control Towers Leads to Nationwide Blackouts

Recently, there has been a series of blackouts at air traffic control towers in the nation’s airports. On April 28, 2025, a 90-second radar and radio outage for Newark Liberty International Airport led to over a thousand delays and cancellations nationwide. Due to this event, multiple air traffic controllers working at Newark were put on trauma leave. A second 90-second blackout incident occurred on May 9, 2025, disrupting communications and radar display equipment. Most recently, a 45-minute equipment failure resulted in a stop on the ground of all traffic at the airport.

Thankfully, there were no fatal crashes in these incidents, but it is a matter of life-safety and a matter of time before an accident occurs. Airplanes rely on air traffic control for coordination in takeoff and landing as well as flight tracking. These incidents highlight the challenge for air traffic controllers to do their jobs and safely coordinate air traffic.

Several issues are at the root cause of the outages. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) has warned for decades that equipment in air traffic control towers is out-of-date and in many cases obsolete and not manufactured anymore. Infrastructure in the nation’s airports is outdated with some projections of modernization costing upwards of 18 billion USD. The need to rebuild and modernize air traffic systems was also echoed by Sara Nelson, the President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) in a statement issued on May 2, 2025.

Air Traffic Control Towers are also chronically understaffed and the workers that are there usually work long hours in order to ensure coverage. The recent outages though have seen workers either leave the job or go on trauma leave which has exacerbated the working conditions. Training for Air Traffic Control takes a minimal of 8 weeks, and the attrition rate due to stress on the job compounds staffing issues.

For the moment, air traffic in and out of Newark has been cut by 25% to accommodate the short staff and equipment issues. However, this is just a temporary fix on a much larger issue. Our airports are a critical public space for transportation and infrastructure to the nation. Workers should have full staffing levels and modernized equipment to ensure the safety of air passengers and safe working conditions.

We can’t forget that over 40 years ago, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO)warned us of the growing safety issues when they went on strike in 1981. Then President Reagan responded to this strike in fascistic fashion by firing all Air Traffic Controllers. The outdated infrastructure in our airports mirrors the out-of-date infrastructure of many of the systems that power the nation.