Jan 23, 2023 3 min read

Anyone who follows news emanating from the federal government can rightly speculate that not enough is being done to address some of this country’s major problems and past omissions.

One Webster’s Dictionary definition for the word “omission” is “apathy toward or neglect of duty,” and that definition probably accurately describes the current situation embedded in the nation’s capital – and which, really, has existed for more than a couple of years on some fronts.

Both major political parties must share the blame, and it is past due for both political parties to face the fact that they need to work together on serious issues demanding joint and swift attention. But does any mindset exist for that kind of cooperative attention amid a political climate where merely undermining each other seems locked in as Goal One?

The fact is that America’s taxpayers are not getting their money’s worth when major problems and omissions are ignored.

Again, both major political parties must share the blame, as well as the fringe elements that continue stoking discord while causing distractions from important business.

One major decades-long omission has been failure by the federal government to provide the direction, joint political support and financial resources to upgrade the Federal Aviation Administration’s pilot-alert system, which experienced a breakdown on Jan. 11 that led the FAA to halt all domestic departures for nearly two hours that day.

The breakdown snarled thousands of flights and led to about 1,300 flight cancellations.

People who rely on air travel frequently – and even those who do not use air travel frequently – should familiarize themselves with the acronym Notams, which stands for the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions alert system. It was Notams that was at the heart of the Jan. 11 situation, and it was Notams that could be at the heart of disruptions in the future, if Congress, rather than working together to address the FAA’s needs, chooses instead to be distracted by the unproductive politics of the day.

People of this region should not feel immune from the need to pay attention to the Notams issue. There are airports here that are impacted by FAA-related lapses due to inadequate congressional action.

Air safety advocates and the FAA have for a long time warned about the possibility of disruptions like the one this month. Actually, industry officials admit that the system has failed at least two other times since early 2021, but the FAA, fortunately, was able to avoid widespread impacts to flights in those instances.

In its Jan. 13 edition, The Wall Street Journal reported that general agreement exists that Notams is being dogged by “failing vintage hardware,” despite updates, because those updates were based largely on legacy technology that is about 30 years old.

“Technology systems that allow the FAA to manage significant amounts of aviation information haven’t always been prioritized by elected officials in recent years,” the Journal reported, based on comments provided by former agency officials.

“The administration and Congress need to make this a priority,” said Michael Huerta, an FAA administrator during the Obama and Trump administrations who currently serves on the board of Delta Air Lines Inc.

The big question now is whether Congress can and will wake up to the need.