Comment by jillyboel
4 days ago
> Do other regions / nations have more advanced ATC
According to Trump, yes. This is what he said:
> When I land in my plane, privately, I use a system from another country because...I won't tell you what country... because the captain says this system is so bad, it's so obsolete, that we can't have that.
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2025/02/06...
I think the intro explaining that this is not true and Trump was most likely misunderstanding his pilot's comments about onboard electronics is the key bit of that article...
Fits in with the first term in which Trump baffled airline executives by assuring them that he'd help solve the problem with the airports giving them the wrong equipment[1], also based on apparently failing to understand an anecdote from his private pilot
There is actually a very long term project to modernise US ATC (less on safety grounds and more on congestion minimization grounds) it's even one in which theoretically a satellite constellation operator could have some involvement as a data provider. But but it's something of an understatement to suggest that this is unlikely to be advanced by an administration lead by someone who thinks he understands aviation based on misunderstanding his pilot and someone whose first foray into improving the FAA was to arbitrarily fire hundreds of FAA staff and whose main goal for the FAA is to deregulate space launches...
[1]https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/re...
> someone whose first foray into improving the FAA was to arbitrarily fire hundreds of FAA staff
400 non-ATC, non-safety related probationary new hires, out of 45,000.
Sure, so 1% of the workforce of an organization generally considered to be understaffed, with the firing criteria being either that (i) their role was a position the FAA had recently decided needed filling or (ii) they had been successful enough with the agency to be promoted to a new role. Having fired them, the agency will now look into whether the radar, landing and navigational aid workers fired performed safety critical functions. Perhaps, like the arbitrarily fired nuclear safety operatives, they might be reinstated
Does this strike you as the approach of an administration that knows what its doing and cares deeply about safety?
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That article says Trump is confused.
> Trump ... seemed to mix up a plane’s onboard electronics system with the federal air traffic control system.