Delta CEO says one of its most popular routes was faster in the 1950s than today — and antiquated air traffic control is to blame
Most commercial flights today are faster than they were decades ago, but not always.
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said flying from Atlanta to New York actually takes longer today than in the 1950s.
He said old air traffic control systems are to blame, amid chaos at Newark that's caused mass delays and cancellations.
You wouldn't expect your commercial flight today to take longer than it would've decades ago, but Delta's CEO said that's the case lately for at least one major flight route.
A Delta Air Lines flight from Atlanta, where the carrier is headquartered, to LaGuardia airport in New York City takes longer today than it did when the airline began offering the route in the 1950s, Ed Bastian said Thursday on "The Today Show."
Delta typically offers at least a dozen flights daily that originate in Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson and arrive in LaGuardia. The shortest of these typically takes around 2 hours and 13 minutes.
"What happens is in order to keep it safe everything gets slowed down at the sign of any kind of risk," he said.
Asked why the flight takes longer today, Bastian responded, "That's the air traffic control system. It's very slow, it's congested but it's not congested; there's plenty of space if you modernize the skies and you can kind of bring greater efficiency."
Key to modernizing the skies would be using satellite technologies and GPS, he said, in addition to updating the radar and radio systems from the 1960s that air traffic controllers are still using.
Delta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Duffy said in Sunday's interview that he is "concerned about the whole airspace" in the United States because the equipment used by most airports is now outdated.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy recently spoke about the issue on "Meet the Press," saying he was "concerned about the whole airspace" in the country because of the antiquated equipment.
"The equipment that we use, much of it we can't buy parts for new," Duffy said. "We have to go on eBay and buy parts if one part goes down. You're dealing with really old equipment. We're dealing with copper wires, not fiber, not high-speed fiber, and so this is concerning."
Bastian called on additional investment from Congress to fund the modernization.
Another major airport in the New York metropolitan area, Newark Liberty International Airport in neighboring New Jersey, has recently been experiencing mass delays and cancellations affecting thousands of travelers.
"It's slowing everything down, taking stress out of the system," Bastian said of Newark. "Now that's not good in the long run, it's not good for consumers, it's not good for the airport itself but it's the only thing that we have in the meantime."
The airport has seen massive disruptions since late April, caused by a shortage of air traffic control staff, some equipment outages, the closure of the main runway for construction, and rainy weather.
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