OPENING LINES Source: https://nbaa.org/, New Editor, First Published May 20, 2025 With news headlines and industry discussions alike dominated by systems outages across the busiest airspace over the Northeastern U.S., an NBAA News Hour webinar delved into the reasons for – and solutions to – these issues and offered guidance and resources to help operators navigate disruptions. FAA Deputy Chief Operating Officer Frank McIntosh acknowledged recent communications and radar outages have further exacerbated issues following the July 2024 relocation of the N90 air traffic control (ATC) sector overlying multiple New York City-area airports to the Philadelphia terminal radar approach control (TRACON) Area C. “The FAA was able to work with our [telecommunications] vendors to put in the appropriate mitigations to make sure if [outages] were ever to occur, that the redundancies worked like they were supposed to,” he said, adding “the second pathway came on like it was close to and there was no loss of critical services” during a brief data systems outage on May 11. McIntosh emphasized increased staffing is needed, noting “every single [classroom] slot” is filled through summer 2026.“Our pipeline is filled … with experienced CPCs (certified professional controllers) and the intent is to shave the certification time from two and a half years to less than a year and a half,” he said. The return of several controllers currently on leave should offer “some immediate relief” by the middle of June, McIntosh added, with plans in place for more robust telecommunications and data systems longer term. NBAA NEWS HOUR: EXPERT TIPS FOR NAVIGATING NE AIRSPACE DISRUPTIONS 9 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 12, ISSUE 05
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