Page 14 - Control Towers News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

It may mean spending more time on the tarmac. >> i woke up and we were still there on the runway. >> myrna says her flight was delayed by 40 minutes. >> i jump on and off these planes like they are cabs. i want to make sure they are safe and somebody there making sure we take off and lan and we're not running into each other. >> reporter: that's a message i heard a few times at l.a.x. they want safety to be there. the senate came together last night and unanimously passed this measure that would give the transportation department more flexibility and how they implement the cuts so they could k...

Months. now, to compare that, think about it this way, that the faa was required to cut some $600 million over the rest of this fiscal year period through september. that just puts into perspective how badly they think this would have gone on, these airlines think this would have gone on had this continued, jake. >> stephanie, it is brooke. are the delays gone? when did everything go back to normal? >> reporter: we're not quite back to normal yet, brooke. we still have to get the president to sign this bill, to make it go into effect and then the transportation department then has to figure ou...

Use it for other things besides paying flight controlle' salaries. you offered to give them the option of dipping into that pool of money to spread some of the pain, they didn't want to do that? >> that is absolutely the truth. and there is two issues here. it started out as control towers being closed at 147 locations across the country, followed by furloughing of air traffic controllers. closing control towers some place, and in some of our busiest airports requiring that the controllers take a day off from work, which is what we've seen the consequences of over this last week. incidentally ...

Going forward. >> i think that's a fair point. lindsey graham and others will say it wasn't enough. not necessarily just 48 hours of vergation, but days and days if not weeks and weeks. that will be a sung for futubje future debate. just ahead, a check of other stories we're following, including serious delays at major airports across the country with fewer people in control towers. we're in store for a lot of waiting. back in a moment with that and all of the late developments out of boston.

Uncontrolled airport. >> overall, greg, as you look at the prospect of closing these control towers, does it worry you about safety? >> absolutely, alex, any time that you lose that tool of the air traffic controller being able to monitor the airplanes coming in and out of that airport or all aircraft, that level of safety diminishes only because you have a service that's provided to pilots to make them more aware of other airplanes and helicopters in the local vicinity. you take that tool away and now you put that onus solely on the pilot and then you see air traffic collisions and they happe...