Jay Rockefeller: “Our economy has begun to slowly turn around, and the demand for air travel has slowly begun to grow. Airlines have…”

“Our economy has begun to slowly turn around, and the demand for air travel has slowly begun to grow. Airlines have cautiously increased capacity. If we act now, we can be prepared to meet the challenges of adding millions of passengers to the system in the next decade. If we fail to act, congestion will plague the system again, delays will be a fact of life, and today will look like the golden age of travel. The benefits of investing in air traffic control modernization extend far beyond the ability to handle more passengers. Most important, the Next Generation Air Transportation System, what we call NextGen, will dramatically improve the safety of our air transportation system by providing pilots and air traffic controllers with better situational awareness. Now you can't tell if there is a mountain in front of you, you can't tell about the ground situation, and you can't tell very well about separation. It is inefficient. Planes land, but they could land more quickly. You cannot read the distance and altitude between one plane flying in for a landing or one taking off. It is inefficient-- dangerous, in fact. So we have to do this. We have to be able to see other aircraft and detailed weather maps in real time and to be able to go from one place to another in a straight shot. That is what NextGen will do for us.”