The Paper-Pushers Who (Barely) Control America’s Skies

City Journal
February 9, 2025

Fans of the 1999 movie Pushing Tin will recall frenetic scenes of air traffic controllers working to keep airliners from colliding in crowded skies. The current reality, writes John Tierney in City Journal, is far worse. Control tasks at U.S. airports today are still exchanged using paper “flight strips”. In contrast to this “international disgrace”, writes Tierney, European and even Canadian control towers have gone nearly all-digital.

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