Trump Breaks Silence, Presses Congress for Air Traffic Money

President Donald Trump broke his silence on the aviation breakdown on Sunday, November 15, 2026, calling on Congress to approve more money for air traffic control. “If Congress approves the desperately needed money for Air Traffic Control, we can get it built quickly and efficiently. It will be the BEST SYSTEM anywhere in the World,” Trump said in a social media post, nearly two days after a nationwide ground stop halted U.S. departures.

His ask has a number on it at the agency level. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is warning that more incidents will occur without major investments to upgrade the Federal Aviation Administration's antiquated communications system, and he's asking Congress for $50 million in additional funding. Congress approved $12.5 billion for FAA improvements in 2025.

The ground stop was ordered at 3:45 p.m. ET on November 13, after a breakdown in the FAA's communications system that administration officials traced to a router replaced as part of an effort to switch old copper wires to fiber-optic cable. The new router started “flooding other routers in our air traffic control system,” Duffy said on November 14. Flights were cleared to resume at 8:15 p.m. that evening, but the backlog kept untangling for days.

The operational count is still rising on paper. U.S. air travel stayed disrupted at midday on Sunday, after more than 15,000 flights were canceled in the previous two days, and more than 1,600 flights within, into or out of the United States were canceled and almost 4,200 delayed on Sunday alone, according to FlightAware. Duffy said flights would come “back to normal” on Sunday and “probably fully normal” on Monday, November 16, and he told ABC's “This Week” that officials have found no evidence of a cyberattack or other malicious intent.

The preliminary investigation points at the upgrade work itself. Duffy said on November 14 that contractor L3Harris was doing a routine upgrade from copper wiring to fiber when a newly installed or modified router began flooding other routers with data, disrupting communications and radar information at air traffic control centers. L3Harris says it has completed more than 70 percent of the planned conversion from copper to fiber and is supporting the FAA's investigation. Investigators are still determining whether the failure was equipment or installer error.

Democrats are answering the funding request with the ledger. In a November 14 statement, Reps. Rick Larsen of Washington and André Carson of Indiana, Democrats on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said much of the $12.5 billion remains unspent more than a year after approval. “Fifteen months later, the administration's obligated $4.3 billion but only spent $1 billion, leaving $8 billion unobligated and $11 billion unspent,” they said. “Explain to Congress, again, why they need more money?”

Duffy's answer is that the money doesn't stretch to this job. On Fox News on November 15, he said the $12.5 billion will be “deployed” by the end of 2028, but the funds were allocated for specific purposes and he doesn't have money for other needed improvements. “I need additional money to do the additional work to keep the air space safe,” he said. Trump put the same case in one line: “We have already started the work, but it should be done all at once, not in drips and drabs. Congress must approve.” In a separate November 15 post, Trump also lashed out at President Joe Biden, alleging he spent FAA money “unwisely.”