Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian on Friday called on lawmakers to increase funding for the Federal Aviation Administration after a system outage led to the delay or cancelation of more than 10,000 flights earlier this week.
The FAA said a preliminary analysis revealed the Notice to Air Missions system, which notifies pilots of potential hazards on their route, failed after “a data file was damaged by personnel who failed to follow procedures.” The outage caused the FAA to pause all domestic departures for more than an hour on Wednesday morning.
Bastian said during an appearance on CNBC that it was a “difficult day” for customers and employees.
“And candidly, it’s unacceptable” he said. “I don’t recall us ever shutting down the national air space due to a similar type of technology outage for several hours.”
However, he suggested the failure “is not the FAA’s fault.”
“I lay this on the fact that we are not giving them the resources, the funding, the staffing, the tools, the technology they need,” he said. “Hopefully this will be the call to our political leaders in Washington that we need to do better.”
The software involved is 30 years old and was not set to be replaced until 2030. It was, however, renamed under Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg from “Notice to Airmen” to “Notice to Air Missions” in order to be more inclusive.
Buttigieg told NBC News he tasked the FAA with ensuring “there are enough safeguards built into the system that this level of disruption can’t happen because of an individual person’s decision or action or mistake.”
Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell (D.,Wash.) has called for a hearing on the disruptions caused by the system outage and by other delays and cancelations caused by bad weather during the height of holiday travel last month.
“The number one priority is safety. As the committee prepares for FAA reauthorization legislation, we will be looking into what caused this outage and how redundancy plays a role in preventing future outages. The public needs a resilient air transportation system,” Cantwell said in a statement.