After a bad crash between a military helicopter and a plane in January, and other crashes after that, the government wants to improve the country's old system for guiding planes and hire more people to do this job.

They say this would help keep people safe and stop the problems the airport in Newark, New Jersey, has had since its radar stopped working for a short time last week.

On Thursday, the person in charge of transport, Sean Duffy, will share a plan to make the system that guides planes better. This plan will cost many billions of dollars. Also, the group that looks after flights, the FAA, is working fast to fix computer and staff issues in Newark. They hope to stop these issues from happening in other places.

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 the plan, which President Trump likes, will get the money it needs from Congress. This money is needed so the plan can work better than other plans from the last 30 years. But Duffy says it is important. A lot of money, more than $14 billion, has been spent since 2003. But this money has not really changed how the system works.

We are actively addressing this issue. We are committed to resolving it and developing a completely new system that will benefit all of you, your families, and the American public, Duffy stated.

But we don't have many details. We don't know if the plan will make the system for controlling airplanes private, like Trump wanted before. Duffy hasn't said this might happen. Many groups will probably come on Thursday when they announce it. These groups, like workers' groups, business groups, people from the industry, and families of those who died in the plane crash in January, will likely be against making the system private.

For many years, the system worked well, so governments didn't pay much attention to it, said professor Sheldon Jacobson. "But working well is not enough for flying because people's lives are in danger."

Jacobson thinks Duffy's idea might not work. But people might support it more after the plane accidents in Washington D.C. and Toronto.

Reports and meetings have shown for many years that the air traffic control system in the country has problems.

"Our system and the airport's buildings and roads are old," said Frank Lorenzo, who used to be the boss of Continental Airlines. "We haven't really taken care of it enough."

The head of the air traffic controllers told politicians that most of the FAA's communication systems still use old copper wires. These old wires are not as good as newer fiber optic lines. Problems with the old wires often stop planes at airports. This may have 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 wires. Some of these wires are old telephone wires. The system uses these wires because the controllers who work at Newark moved to Philadelphia last summer. They moved because there were not enough workers.

The FAA said on Wednesday that they will change old copper wires to fiber optics. They will also add three more data lines between New York and Philadelphia. The agency is also trying to train more controllers and make sure they are ready.

We don't know exactly how long these things will take, but Duffy hopes the situation in Newark will be better by summer. This is when some work on the airport will finish. Some controllers are still on leave after the radar problem. This made the staff shortage in Philadelphia worse.

Because of this, the FAA is letting fewer planes fly in and out of Newark. This helps make sure flights are safe, but it means some flights are canceled. The FAA will also meet with airlines to decide how many flights the airport can handle. On Wednesday, Newark had the most canceled flights in the country. 42 planes did not leave, and 46 planes did not arrive. This was even after United stopped 35 flights every day from the airport starting last weekend.

Since 2003, the FAA has been slowly making things better with their Nextgen program. For example, they made a system called ADS-B. This system helps people on the ground and other planes know where an airplane is exactly. People are looking closely at this system in the investigation of the crash in January because the helicopter in the crash was not using ADS-B to show where it was when the accident happened.

Duffy wants to hire more air traffic controllers. He made the training faster and helped students do well. The FAA is also giving extra money to experienced controllers so they keep working.

It is hard to make the system for airplanes better because they have to keep the old system working while they build a new one. Then they need to change to the new system easily. This is part of the reason why they have made small changes over time.

This problem has been here for a long time. It's not because people didn't care, but because it's hard to fix," said Jeff Guzetti. He used to investigate accidents and worked for a government office that looked after air travel. "It needs money and good plans. And the FAA hasn't had enough money or good plans for years.