Putzger perspective: Not enough done to protect aviation

After a few years in the business, almost everybody in the aviation industry can remember at least one large-scale disruption to the system.

For recent industry entrants in North America, one likely candidate is the massive telecommunications and radar outage on 21 September that snarled air traffic in the US Northeast for more than eight hours, causing the cancellation or delays of over 7,000 flights, including 1,400 flights at the major New York City airports, where 130 world leaders and dozens of ministers were arriving for the annual high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

The following day, the US Transportation Secretary assured the public that such an outage would not occur again after the replacement of the existing air traffic control system, which has been prone to hiccups.

Not everybody thinks that a new ATC system will be the kind of magic wand that heralds the end of large-scale disruptions.

This story was originally published by Air Cargo News. Read the full story at Air Cargo News →