During Wednesday’s Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) questioned Franklin McIntosh, the Deputy Chief Operating Officer of the Air Traffic Organization at the Federal Aviation Administration, about FAA modernization efforts.
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00:00thank you senator Schmidt thank you mr. chairman mr. McIntosh I'll start with
00:05you and maybe you've you've answered this question for numerous senators
00:10before but I did want to get given the recent news and some of the concerns
00:16that are out there about how outdated some of our systems are can you give an
00:22update on where we're at with with modernization and safety in regards to
00:28modernization we continue to have several surface safety portfolios that
00:34are going to help us maintain some safety standards I'm going to speak
00:37strictly for what we're doing for runway safety some of the things that we are
00:40deploying now is a surface awareness initiative that has ADSB technology to
00:46give controller situational awareness of what's going on in the surface runway
00:49incursion devices is now being deployed at several facilities that alert
00:53controllers when a runway has been closed or we have an aircraft on a runway for
00:58a prescribed amount of time that could be concerning and we want to make sure we
01:01clear that aircraft and a third thing that we've actually deployed recently
01:05something called a approach runway verification that alerts controllers
01:09when we may have a misalignment to a closed taxiway or a active taxiway or
01:15lining up for the wrong runway all three of these tools if you were to stack them
01:19on top of one another actually gives us better awareness of what's going on I
01:23think the larger question though is how are we going to fix the current
01:26infrastructure and some of the older things that we have in place we have
01:30facilities that are more than 60 years old and a lot of the technologies in
01:35those facilities are extremely antiquated our goal or our hope is that we get
01:42bipartisan support to move senator Duffy's or secretary Duffy's request
01:46forward so we can start bringing controllers and managers the newest
01:49equipment that we can bring in from automation from radar and from voice
01:53switching where we're better at our jobs and providing safety services how long
01:57will that take to implement let's say we did that in the next two months how long
02:00would that take to implement the agency would have a goal of deploying that
02:05within four years sir and what I mean by four years is putting those those items in
02:10place and and and does that mean does that mean it takes four years
02:15everywhere or it's staged so LaGuardia is updated before LAX or something like that
02:22how does that work we would prioritize the facilities based on needs I do know one
02:26of the facilities that that secretary Duffy has prioritized already is is
02:30Philadelphia area C in the Newark airspace based on some of some of the
02:34outages that we've seen okay miss Baker I want to turn to you with the time that I
02:38have and I do want to ask mr. Hybeck a question too as relates to the the DCA
02:45tragedy and we had a hearing the chairman thankfully convened a hearing on that
02:53and some of the revelations were shocking about the number of near misses that
02:57happen at DCA I mean across the country but specifically at DCA where do we stand
03:04with the grounding of helicopter traffic and I know this is an army
03:11conversation too but what is your understanding of where we're at with
03:14that right now I think I'm going to actually defer that to mr. McIntosh sure
03:19in regards to just with the army helicopters in the Pentagon and DCA sorry we
03:26are having communications with with DOD right now to ensure compliance right now
03:31they are not flying out of the Pentagon until we we have further
03:34conversations and some of the equipment issues that we experienced the other
03:37day are fixed as far as total grounding that may be part of the conversation but
03:43right now we haven't had to go in and and pursue that as right now the DOD is
03:48working with the FAA to make sure that we have safety thresholds in place after
03:51the latest outage sir okay I know that's something that a lot of committee
03:55members are are very focused on and wanted to kind of get a lay of the land mr.
04:00highbeck I wanted to ask you specifically about you know Kansas City just had a new
04:05airport completed I think it's been very well received I fly on and out of there
04:10occasionally but I live in the st. Louis area so Lambert is top of mind always so
04:15this is a little bit more closer to home a little bit more parochial the FAA
04:18approved a master plan in 2023 could you just give me an update on the FAA's
04:24engagement in st. Louis it's a pretty unique opportunity st. Louis has a rich
04:27history I grew up in the shadow of that airport there's there's a lot of great
04:33opportunities for modernization and for the consolidation there but what can you
04:36just give me an idea of your engagement where you where things stand yes
04:39absolutely a lot of exciting things happening in st. Louis including the
04:44construction of the new fighter jet there yes by Boeing we are our office has a
04:50great working our central regional office is a great working relationship with
04:53the city we are currently working with them closely to finalize their application
04:58under the airport terminal program for the seven million dollars that they've
05:02applied for working with them to get bids and I know that will facilitate the
05:08consolidation of their two terminals as that's called for in the master plan
05:11that's lots of lots of other programs that were participating in as well as
05:16including the de-icing pad there some taxiway reconstruction and I also
05:20believe we're also participating in a snow removal equipment building and then on
05:25the horizon they have a airfield maintenance facility I know that's in
05:31their capital airport plan so we are tracking very closely the many needs at
05:35st. Louis Lambert International Airport and have a great working relationship
05:38but it's pretty unique I mean it's a pretty unique asset and it's the right in
05:42the middle of the metro they've got a billion dollar runway that let's just say is
05:47underutilized it was built right before TWA left the building and so there's a
05:53lot of opportunities for growth there I know my office will be working with you
05:57and and working with the airport on that to make sure that that is a world-class
06:01facility and so thanks thanks for the update we look forward to working with
06:06your office in the airport thank you thank you mr. chairman