Towering concerns arise regarding air traffic control staffing, effect on travel at Chicago airports

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Possible turbulent times are ahead for air travelers in and out of Chicago's two major airports as we head into the busy Christmas schedule, the ABC7 I-Team has learned.

That was the read from Washington Thursday as Congress and the FAA wrestle with thousands of open positions in U.S. control towers.

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There are towering concerns at O'Hare and Midway for federal aviation authorities and the members of Congress whose committee oversees the agency. There are way too many empty seats at air traffic control positions in those towers, resulting in questions of safety and why the federal government can't do better staffing these jobs.

Holiday air travel is expected to be the busiest in history, with Thursday, December 19, projected to be the most traveled single day. There may not be many empty seats in the air, but there are plenty of empty seats in the towers and radar facilities that control jet traffic.

As the I-Team first reported in November, at the regional Air Traffic Control Center in Aurora, current staffing is at only 82%. Some East Coast airports, including Newark where, Chicago-based United Airline has a hub, have had to delay and cancel flights because of FAA controller shortages.

"In the years immediately following the pandemic, we witnessed an alarming series of close calls in commercial aviation," Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth said.

She chaired a subcommittee hearing in Washington Thursday focusing on dangerously low staffing in the towers and decaying equipment.

A new Government Accountability report says things are getting worse, not better.

"This is completely unacceptable. Air traffic facilities and radars need improvements," Texas Senator Ted Cruz said. "Based on FAA data, the reliability of the FAA's radar fleet is declining. The United States should be a leader in aviation technology. Sadly, this is often not the case."

"The modernization of existing air traffic management infrastructure in the United States continues to fall behind peer countries and is straining from the continued operations and growth of conventional airspace users," said Marc Scribner, Senior Transportation Policy Analyst for the Reason Foundation.

"There is no easy answer or quick fix. A snap of Iron Man's fingers cannot fix this," said Kevin Walsh with the Government Accountability Office. "This will be the work of many years and billions of dollars."

Complicating things, the leader of the Federal Aviation Administration, Mike Whitaker, announced he is stepping down next month so President-elect Donald Trump can slate his own FAA administrator. One factor in the Trump replacement selection may be Elon Musk, who has been clashing with the FAA for slowing development on his Starship mega-rocket.