Key facts
- Duffy said the $12.5 billion in congressional funding cannot pay for new telecom architecture or towers.
- Van Hollen said Congress gave the administration what it asked for and it should justify any further request.
- Duffy said the FAA is investigating the root cause and contractor L3Harris is conducting diagnostics testing.
- The Pass union, representing more than 11,000 FAA workers, said its technicians were not involved in the upgrades.
- Duffy said there continued to be no indication of a foreign cyberattack.
- Trump posted on Truth Social on November 15 blaming the Biden administration and urging Congress to fund flight control systems.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on November 15, 2026, that prior administrations and a lack of congressional funding left the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic systems outdated, after a four-hour nationwide flight stoppage on November 13 delayed or canceled thousands of flights. Duffy told CNN's Dana Bash he takes responsibility for what prior administrations gave him, a day after he said a contractor's botched routine maintenance caused the ground stop.
Duffy said the $12.5 billion in congressional funding was limited in scope and not nearly enough. "I have no money in that $12.5bn that I can use for a new architecture for telecom," he said, adding that the airspace software dates to the 1990s and that towers are old.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland told CNN that Congress had given the administration what it asked for. "If they need more, they should come up and justify it," he said, adding he would support what is necessary for a safe and reliable system.
Trump posted on Truth Social on November 15 blaming the Biden administration and urging Congress to provide funding quickly. Duffy said Trump was fully engaged and tracking the situation.
On CBS News' Face the Nation, Duffy told host Margaret Brennan that the FAA is investigating the root cause of the botched maintenance, which involved replacing copper telecommunication lines with fiber optic cables and had been done thousands of times without issues. He said contractor L3Harris is reportedly conducting diagnostics testing and that there continued to be no indication of a foreign cyberattack.
The Pass union, which represents more than 11,000 FAA workers, said its technicians were not involved in the upgrades that led to the ground stop. It said the issue was isolated to two contractor-owned and maintained routers being updated midday, and that contractors have historically followed a protocol in which FAA employees conduct a risk assessment and coordinate maintenance. Duffy told Brennan the work was done appropriately and said the agency would re-evaluate when such work is done. Asked whether a risk assessment was conducted, he did not directly answer, saying the agency does risk assessments on everything.
Duffy also cited a Government Accountability Office report published in September 2026 on the need to modernize air traffic control systems. Pass called for progress on staffing certified professional technicians and for the union to be fully engaged in implementing the Brand New Air Traffic Control System.