Crowded planes and airports set records, straining the U.S. aviation system

Few major airports in the U.S. have grown faster in recent decades than Nashville International Airport, and Shirley Beldsoe thinks it’s changed for the better.

“The airport’s beautiful now. Uptown!” said Bledsoe of Brentwood, Tenn., who’s been flying through this airport since the 1970s.

But ask Bledsoe how the in-flight experience has changed, and she says she feels squeezed by the airlines.

“I think the airplane design has made it more crowded. Some of my suitcases don’t even roll through the aisle,” she said. “And then I just think the legroom has gotten tighter. So it’s more the design of the planes that’s been uncomfortable.”

If you’re flying across the country this Fourth of July weekend, you’re in good company. The biggest holiday of the summer is expected to set travel records again, with the Transportation Security Administration preparing to screen more than 18 million travelers at U.S. airports over the next week.

U.S. airlines are carrying more passengers than ever, even while operating fewer flights than they did 20 years ago. They’re flying bigger planes while filling more seats on each one, and that’s testing the limits of the aviation system.

The airlines have invested billions to optimize their own operations. Now the industry is pushing the government to do the same thing for the nation’s airspace.

“It’s clear that the biggest threat to [a] healthy and competitive airline industry is our short-staffed and woefully antiquated air traffic control system,” Chris Sununu, the head of the industry trade group Airlines For America, said at a hearing on Capitol Hill last week.

Sununu, who formerly served as governor of New Hampshire, urged Congress to find more money to overhaul the air traffic control system — on top of the billions lawmakers appropriated last year to upgrade communications and radar equipment.

“Congress must build upon its $12.5 billion down payment toward air traffic control modernization, with the next round of funding to ensure that technology gaps that have been completely ignored for the last 30 years that they finally get addressed,” Sununu said.

There’s broad agreement that the nation’s air traffic control system has not kept pace with growing demand. The system is thousands of controllers short of full staffing.

At the control tower in Nashville, the Federal Aviation Administration had only 27 fully certified controllers on staff as of September — well short of its official target of 52. The shortage has forced the FAA to stop or delay traffic several times, and not only during the partial government shutdown that hobbled many control facilities across the country.

Even the head of the FAA says the aviation system has “reached its limits.” At an aviation industry conference in May, administrator Bryan Bedford said the FAA needs to do more than just replace aging equipment.

“If we just remove all the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s technology and replace it with 21st century digital tech, we’ll have a really super reliable system,” Bedford said. “But all of the inefficiencies that are essentially designed into the current system, that will be unchanged.”

Last week, the FAA announced an $875 million contract for AI-enhanced software to coordinate flights across the entire airspace. Bedford says predictive analytics will help the FAA use its infrastructure more efficiently, potentially freeing up capacity for more flights.

There is bipartisan support for modernizing the nation’s airspace. Polly Trottenberg, who served as deputy transportation secretary and acting head of the FAA during the Biden administration, applauds the Trump administration for dedicating $12.5 billion to air traffic control.

“It’s a good down payment,” she said, “but it’s not nearly what a system that has been chronically underinvested in for a decade and a half needs.”

Trottenberg is skeptical that AI-enhanced software alone can fix all of the system’s problems.

“The system itself has not kept pace with growth and demand. And predictive analytics can help with that,” she said. “But I think there also has to be a better balance between basically supply and demand.”

Last year was a record-breaking year for Nashville International Airport, capping several decades of explosive growth. The number of passengers departing from Nashville more than doubled between 2015 and 2025, according to data from the Department of Transportation.

The airport has expanded rapidly to keep up, adding restaurants, gates and a new lobby. But some travelers said they feel the strain of all that rapid growth.

“Air travel’s sucking more lately,” said Marisol Maldonado, who was flying from Nashville back home to McAllen, Texas.

“Absolutely, yes, it is crazy, especially when you’re trying to rent a car. That’s the nightmare,” said Nate Jones, who was visiting relatives in Tennessee. “But hey, you just have to be patient and work with it.”

WPLN’s Cynthia Abrams reported from Nashville, and Joel Rose reported from Washington.

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