After a bad crash between a military helicopter and a passenger plane in January, and other crashes, officials want to fix the old system that controls planes and hire more people to do this job.

They say this would help keep people safe and stop problems like the ones at the Newark airport last week when the radar stopped working for a short time.

On Thursday, the person in charge of transportation, Sean Duffy, will share a plan that costs a lot of money. This plan will make the system that controls planes in the air better. Also, the people who manage air travel, the FAA, are trying to fix problems with computers and workers at Newark airport quickly so the same problems don't happen at other airports.

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

We are not sure if Duffy's plan, which President Trump likes, will get enough money from Congress. This money is needed for the plan to work better than other changes in the last 30 years. But Duffy says it is important. Since 2003, over $14 billion has been used to make things better, but these improvements have not really changed how the system works.

We are working on it. We will fix it and make a new system for everyone, including your families and the American people,

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. These include workers' unions who won't like selling it, companies, and families of those who died in the January crash.

Professor Sheldon Jacobson, who studies flying safety, said the system worked well for many years, so leaders didn't pay much attention to it. But he said 'working well' is not enough for flying because people's lives are in danger.

Jacobson isn't sure if Duffy's idea will work. But people might support it more now after a plane and a helicopter crashed in Washington in January, and another plane turned over and burned in Toronto.

For many years, people have talked about the problems with how the country controls airplanes in the sky. Reports and meetings have shown these problems. For example, a report in March said that more than half of the systems the FAA uses are not good enough now or might not be good enough later. Also, in 2023, a problem with one of the FAA's systems stopped all flights in the country for more than two hours.

He said, "Our system is old, and our buildings are not modern." He also said, "We haven't really cared about it enough."

The head of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association told Congress that the FAA's communication system at over 4,600 places uses old copper wires. This causes problems and delays at airports.

The system that helps planes at Newark Airport stopped working for about 30 seconds on April 28.

The FAA said on Wednesday that they will change the old copper wires to new, faster cables. They will also put in three new lines to send information between New York and Philadelphia. The FAA is also teaching more people to control the planes.

It was not clear how long these things will take, but Duffy hopes the problem in Newark will be better by summer. This is when a project to build a new runway is planned to finish. Some controllers are still away from work because of the radar problem. This made the lack of staff in Philadelphia worse.

Because of the problem, the FAA has made fewer planes arrive and leave Newark airport. This is to make sure flights are safe, but it means some flights are canceled. The FAA will also talk to airlines to decide how many flights the airport can handle. On Wednesday, Newark had the most canceled flights in the country. This happened even though one airline had already stopped 35 flights every day at the airport since last weekend.

Since 2003, the FAA has made small improvements with their Nextgen program. For example, they made a system called ADS-B. This system shows where planes are to people who control air traffic and to other planes. This system is important in the investigation of the crash in January because the Black Hawk helicopter was not using it to show where it was when the crash happened.

Duffy also tried to hire air traffic controllers faster. He made the training shorter and helped more students finish. The FAA is also giving extra money to controllers who have worked for a long time so they don't stop working too soon.

It is difficult to make the system for planes better because the FAA must keep using the old system while they build a new one. Then they need to change to the new system easily. This is why they have made small improvements over time.

Jeff Guzetti said this problem is very old. It is hard to fix. It is not because people didn't care, but because it is a difficult problem. He used to investigate accidents and worked for the government on airplanes. He said it needs money and good leaders. But the FAA, which helps with planes, has not had enough money or good leaders for many years.