The failure of the US air traffic control system resulted from an attempt to modernize aging infrastructure, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a news conference. According to him, the introduction of modern technology has overloaded "an incredibly outdated system". At the time of the collapse, inconsistent information began to flow from the radars, and "instability in communication centers and radars and towers" was recorded throughout the country.
The November 13 failure led to the suspension of flights for more than four hours. However, the cascading effect was much more severe: by 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time, almost 10,000 flights were canceled, and the next day - more than 2,500. The schedule was not restored along with the connection. Planes and crews were not at the airports where they were supposed to be, causing a chain of new delays. In the run-up to Thanksgiving, further disruption will be even more costly due to heavy flight bookings and a lack of available seats for rebooking. The problems extended beyond passenger transport: American Airlines' cargo division temporarily restricted the transport of certain categories of cargo, including animals.
Now about the damage. The Airline Industry Association of America uses a threshold of $47 per passenger hour. If half a million people lost an hour on average because of a glitch, that's only $23.5 million in lost time. Airlines have a separate account: fuel on taxi routes, aircraft and crew transfers, rebooking and refunds. The industry benchmark for 2025 is $98.41 per taxi per flight minute. Added to this are passenger costs for hotels and ground transportation as well as carrier losses.
On a budgetary scale, the situation seems even more revealing. Congress had already allocated $12.5 billion for modernization, but after the failure, Duffy called for another $50 billion.