After a serious crash between a helicopter and a plane in January, and other accidents since then, the government wants to make the air traffic control system better and hire more people to work there.

They say this would help keep people safe and stop the problems that happened at the Newark airport because its radar system stopped working for a short time last week.

The head of transportation, Sean Duffy, will show a plan on Thursday to spend a lot of money to make the country's system for guiding airplanes better. Also, the government group for flying, the Federal Aviation Administration, is trying to fix computer and staff problems in one city, Newark, so that other cities do not have the same problems.

When there are problems, one thing is clear: The old system has trouble managing the country's more than 45,000 flights every day.

It's not clear if President Trump's plan will get the money it needs from Congress to work better than past plans. But Duffy thinks it is important. A lot of money has been spent since 2003, but the system is still much the same.

We are actively working on this issue and plan to resolve it. We intend to construct a completely new system for you, your families, and the American public, Duffy stated.

But we don't have many details. We don't know if the plan will sell the air traffic control system to private companies, like Trump wanted before. Duffy hasn't said this might happen. Many groups will probably come to the announcement on Thursday. Unions will likely be against selling the system, and there will also be trade groups, companies, and families of people who died in the crash in January.

Professor Sheldon Jacobson, who studies flying, said the system worked well for many years, so governments didn't think much about it. But he said that working well is not enough for flying because people's lives are in danger.

Jacobson doesn't think Duffy's idea will work. But maybe more people will support it after the plane crash in Washington D.C. in January and the plane that caught fire in Toronto.

Reports and meetings have shown for years that the system for controlling airplanes in the country has problems.

Frank Lorenzo, who was a boss at Continental Airlines, said: "Our system is old and the roads and buildings we use are old too." He also said: "We haven't taken care of it enough." He helped make Newark a big airport for United Airlines.

The head of the air traffic controllers in the country told the government that most of the equipment the FAA uses at over 4,600 places still has old copper wires. These old wires are not as good as newer fiber optic lines, which can send more information and work better. Problems with the old wires often stop planes from leaving airports, and it seems this caused the problems in Newark.

The radar system that helps air traffic controllers in Philadelphia guide planes at Newark airport stopped working for about 30 seconds on April 28. This system gets information from New York using lines that might have problems. Some of these lines are old phone lines. The FAA uses these lines because the controllers for Newark airport moved from New York to Philadelphia last summer to have enough staff.

The FAA said they will change the old copper wires to new fiber optic lines. They will also add three new data lines between New York and Philadelphia. The agency is also training more people to control planes.

We don't know exactly how long these steps will take. But Duffy hopes the situation in Newark will be better by summer. This is when a project to build a runway should finish. Some controllers are still on leave because they are stressed after the radar stopped working. This made the problem with not enough staff in Philadelphia worse.

Because of this, the FAA made flights slower at Newark airport to make sure they were safe. This meant some flights had to be cancelled. The FAA will also talk with the airlines to see how many flights the airport can manage. On Wednesday, Newark had the most cancelled flights in the country. 42 flights that were leaving and 46 flights that were arriving were cancelled. This was true even though United had already stopped 35 flights every day there since last weekend.

The FAA has made small improvements since 2003 with a program called Nextgen. One good thing they did is a system called ADS-B. This system helps people who control air traffic and other planes know exactly where planes are. This system is important for the investigation of the crash in January because the helicopter was not using it to show where it was when the crash happened.

Duffy has also tried to hire more air traffic controllers. He made it faster to join the school and helped students do better. The FAA is also giving extra money to experienced controllers. This is so they don't stop working too soon.

It is hard to make the airport system better because the FAA has to keep the old system working while they build a new one. Then, they need to change to the new one easily. This is one reason why the agency has made small changes slowly before.

This problem has been here for many years. It's not because people didn't care, but because it is hard to fix, said Jeff Guzetti. He used to look into accidents and worked for the government checking planes. He said it needs money and good leaders. But the FAA has not had enough money or good leaders for a long time.