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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy spoke at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) on Aug. 12 on updating Alaska's aviation infrastructure.
He stated that most of the funding will be from the Big Beautiful Bill. According to a press release from Sen. Dan Sullivan, an amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2024 will invest $25 million annually until 2028. The Big Beautiful Bill will invest an additional $12.5 billion into updating air traffic control systems, according to the DOT."We need some investments in a state where 82% of our communities can't be reached by road and so if we're going to bring people and supplies and services into our communities, we use aviation and we need it to be safer," Secretary Duffy said, according to Alaska's News Source. "So that message has been heard loud and clear from your delegation."
Alaska's congressional delegation met with over 30 members of the Alaska aviation community on Tuesday. Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich, R-Alaska both spoke at the meeting about the importance of funding for the state. The previous time the delegation and Duffy met was days after a crash near Nome that killed 10 people. There have been 51 aviation accidents in Alaska this year, according to the NTSB, and the problem has been ongoing for years.RELATED STORIES:9 passengers and pilot killed in Alaska, bodies and wreckage locatedCessna Caravan in Alaska crash that killed 10 was 1,000 lbs overweightNTSB says pilot attempted go-around to avoid dog on runway before deadly Alaska crashOverload of moose meat caused crash that killed former Rep. Mary Peltola's husband"We die a little bit at a time - one here, two there, three there," Colleen Mondor, a Fairbanks pilot and aviation writer to NPR, back in 2023. "Every now and again, there's a big one, a midair that breaks through to international news. But mostly we die like this, one or two or three at a time. It just gets lost."
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-AK, was not at the conference, but has stated before that more needed to be done for Alaska's aviation safety.
"I think we owe more to the people of Alaska to make sure that the technologies that we have in place, whether it's the Automated Weather Observing System ... whether it is making sure that we have certification for weather observers in our communities, making sure that we actually have the broadband so that these systems work," Murkowski said in Febuary. "We have work to do, but we owe it to Alaskans, we owe it to Americans everywhere, to make sure that we can be as safe as possible."