Millions of Americans will head to the airport this summer, and the nation's top airline pilot union is sounding an alarm: the U.S. aviation system is showing dangerous signs of strain, and Congress has left critical safety gaps wide open.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi, the president of the Air Line Pilots Association, International, the world's largest airline pilot union, representing more than 80,000 pilots in the United States and Canada, laid out the case in a Fox News opinion piece that Congress should merge the strongest provisions of two competing bills, the House-passed ALERT Act and the Senate-passed ROTOR Act, into a single, comprehensive aviation safety package.
His argument lands at a moment when the evidence is hard to dismiss. Over the past 15 months, a fatal midair collision near Washington National Airport, a deadly runway collision at LaGuardia, and a string of near misses have made the cracks in the system impossible to ignore.
Both chambers of Congress have moved legislation. The House passed the ALERT Act, which Ambrosi described as taking "important steps in response to the 2025 crash near Washington National Airport." But he argued the bill "does not go far enough to close the safety gaps it exposed."
The Senate, meanwhile, passed the ROTOR Act, which would require a full ADS-B In suite, the technology that receives and displays data about nearby aircraft in real time and alerts pilots to collision risks. The distinction matters.
Right now, commercial aircraft flying near major U.S. airports are generally required to use ADS-B Out, which broadcasts an airplane's position data. But ADS-B In, the receiving end, the piece that actually shows a pilot what's around them, is not required. That gap is the heart of Ambrosi's complaint.
Worse, military and other government aircraft operating in busy civilian airspace are not even required to transmit the same data as commercial airliners. In the most congested corridors in the country, not every aircraft in the sky is playing by the same rules.
The technology gap is only part of the picture. Ambrosi pointed to aging air traffic control infrastructure, persistent controller staffing shortages, rising traffic volume, and growing airspace complexity as compounding threats. Each one alone would demand attention. Together, they form a pattern that should concern anyone who flies, or whose family does.
Congress made what Ambrosi called "an important down payment on air traffic control modernization last year." But a down payment is not a solution. And the legislative window for a stronger bill is open right now, with both the ALERT Act and the ROTOR Act already through their respective chambers.
Aviation safety has historically been a bipartisan priority. It should not take another disaster to force a conference committee to reconcile these two bills into something that actually closes the gaps. The question is whether lawmakers will treat this as urgent, or whether it will drift into the usual congressional holding pattern.
The broader context of congressional attention to aviation-related issues has been uneven at best. When TSA union leaders called on Congress to resolve a DHS funding standoff, the urgency was clear: the people who keep air travel safe were caught in the middle of a political fight that had nothing to do with their mission.
Ambrosi's core demand is straightforward. Any final aviation safety bill, he argued, "must require a full, integrated ADS-B In safety suite." He wants all aircraft operating in the busiest and most complex airspace in the country to use the same real-time tracking and alerting technology to prevent collisions.
That means commercial airliners, military aircraft, and government planes alike. No carve-outs. No exceptions for aircraft that happen to belong to the federal government.
As Ambrosi put it:
"Lawmakers shouldn't choose between ROTOR and ALERT, they should pass the best of both."
It is a reasonable position. When the president of an 80,000-member pilot union tells Congress that the people who fly these planes every day see gaps in the safety net, the instinct should be to listen, not to let two competing bills sit in limbo while members haggle over credit.
This is not an abstract policy debate. The 2025 crash near Washington National Airport was fatal. The runway collision at LaGuardia was deadly. Near misses at busy airports put passengers, crew, and people on the ground at risk. Every one of those incidents involved real people, families headed on vacation, business travelers, flight crews doing their jobs.
The aviation industry has faced mounting pressures on multiple fronts. The federal government's near-$500 million rescue deal for bankrupt Spirit Airlines showed Washington's willingness to intervene when an airline's finances collapse. The question is whether that same urgency extends to the safety infrastructure that keeps every airline's passengers alive.
Labor dynamics across the industry underscore the tension. When United Airlines flight attendants secured a new contract with 31% pay raises, it reflected the leverage aviation workers have gained in a system stretched thin. Pilots, controllers, and cabin crews all see the pressure from the inside. Their warnings carry weight that Washington committee hearings often lack.
The legislative path is unusually clear. The House has passed one bill. The Senate has passed another. Both address aviation safety. The pilot union that represents the largest share of commercial aviators in North America has told Congress exactly what the final product should include: full ADS-B In requirements, no exemptions for military or government aircraft in civilian airspace, and continued investment in air traffic control modernization and staffing.
Runway safety incidents have not been limited to the East Coast's busiest hubs. A Frontier Airlines jet struck and killed a trespasser on a Denver runway during takeoff, a reminder that safety failures take many forms and that the margin for error on the ground is just as thin as in the air.
The political incentives here should be aligned. No lawmaker wants to explain, after the next midair collision, why they let two safety bills gather dust instead of merging them. No committee chairman wants to be the one who slow-walked technology requirements that pilots themselves were begging for.
And yet, Congress has a long history of treating aviation safety as urgent only in the immediate aftermath of tragedy, then letting the urgency fade as the news cycle moves on. That pattern is what Ambrosi is trying to break. Whether lawmakers have the discipline to act before the next disaster, rather than after, will say a great deal about how seriously they take the warnings coming from the cockpit.
The relationship between Congress and the aviation sector has grown more complicated in recent years. When Delta halted congressional travel perks during a government shutdown, it was a pointed reminder that the airline industry notices when Washington fails to do its job, and is willing to say so publicly.
Several important details remain unclear. What specific provisions in the ALERT Act fall short of the pilot union's requirements? What staffing numbers support the claim of persistent controller shortages? What were the official findings from the Washington National Airport collision and the LaGuardia runway incident? And what specific air traffic control equipment is so outdated that it poses a safety risk?
These are questions Congress should be answering in public hearings, not leaving to opinion writers and union presidents to raise on their own. The fact that the most detailed public case for merging these two bills is coming from a pilot, not a committee chairman or an FAA administrator, tells you something about where the urgency lives and where it doesn't.
When the people who strap into the cockpit every morning say the system has gaps, the only reckless response is to do nothing.