SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy took a tour of the San Diego International Airport Thursday morning as he touted President Donald Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill," which sets aside billions of dollars for air traffic control upgrades.
"They should not be using this equipment," Duffy said. "I think Americans expect much better than what we're using here today."
Secretary Duffy says the Bill would improve things like telecommunications infrastructure and radar systems. Duffy says airports across the nation are currently relying on technology from the 1970s: things like floppy disks and copper wires need to be replaced.
He also talked about simple upgrades inside air traffic control towers. Specifically, the tower connected to the San Diego International Airport, which needs new window shades and roof repairs.
"The Big, Beautiful Bill is the one pathway we have right now that's going to start the funding, start the process, start the building, start the fixing of this old antiquated system," Duffy said. "Now that's not going to be enough. We are going to need a lot more money, but this is the one vehicle we have to start the build right now."
President Trump’s bill allocates $12.5 billion toward these upgrades. The largest chunk of that will go to modernize air traffic controllers communication hardware, purchasing new radios and network connections. It has more than $2 billion going to air traffic control towers and about $1 billion going to recruitment, retention and training. However, the bill doesn't specify where the money is going or whether San Diego will receive a new air traffic control tower specifically.
WATCH: Following his tour of the airport and air traffic control tower, Duffy held a press conference to discuss issues he saw and how the "Big, Beautiful Bill" can address them
According to San Diego International, the airport is one of the busiest single-runway commercial service airports in the world, and in 2024, it had its busiest year with 25.24 million passengers.
Although air traffic control centers are short-staffed around the country, numbers ABC10News obtained from the FAA show San Diego's towers are above the staffing standards target, at 23 people in 2023.
In May 2021, the FAA launched an investigation after air traffic controllers diverted a plane just 200 feet above the ground from landing while a second plane was on the runway preparing for departure. Just a month later, in June 2021, another incident: Air traffic captured confusion as one plane was cleared to land while another was still exiting the runway.
All the planes mentioned in those two cases landed safely, and incidents like that at the San Diego International Airport are rare.
