Transportation Secretary announces $12.5 billion for air-traffic modernization, including electronic flight strips

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport that $12,500,000,000 in federal funding will support a transition to electronic flight strips and broader air-traffic-control upgrades.

Duffy said the funds came "thanks to Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress," and that the move from paper flight strips to digital systems will "bring safety and efficiency to our airspace." He described the paper strips used by controllers as "vintage" and said air-traffic controllers had requested electronic flight strips "for years."

Why it matters: electronic flight strips digitize the controller handoff process and can streamline information sharing between controllers, which officials say can reduce workload and improve situational awareness. Duffy framed the funding as the enabler for wider improvements, listing radars, radio and telecommunications among the planned upgrades.

"We're going digital," Duffy said, adding that "the work has begun, modernization is underway," and that the administration is "moving at Trump speed." Those remarks tied the funding and the pace of work to federal decision-making and political leadership as characterized by Duffy.

The announcement in the transcript does not include implementation timelines, specific contractor names, or a detailed breakdown of how the $12.5 billion will be allocated across systems and sites. Duffy said controllers had been asking for electronic flight strips "for years," but the transcript does not record comments from controllers or FAA officials confirming a schedule or milestones.

Next steps: according to Duffy's remarks, modernization work has begun. The transcript does not record a formal funding vote, contract awards, or specific dates for equipment deployment.