The FAA has plans for an even more radical system, known as NextGen, premised on the belief that advanced GPS technology can solve the problem of how to cram an ever-increasing number of planes into the same space. By more accurately pinpointing an aircraft's location, it could allow planes to fly closer to one another without compromising safety. NextGen will have a big impact at the highest altitudes, where airliners cruise along a defined network of jetways—delineated by navigational beacons on the ground—that were first created 50 years ago.

But there are limits to what new technology can accomplish. Aircraft must land somewhere, and air travel gridlock ultimately has its roots on terra firma. A decade ago, the FAA set a goal of adding the equivalent of 50 miles of runway to the nation's airport capacity. But no new airfields have been built in a generation; Denver International, which opened in the mid-1990s, simply replaced one that had been shut down, and while Atlanta and Chicago have added runways to their maxed-out airports in recent years, those projects took decades to come to fruition. Most local officials are loath to face the inevitable resistance from residents to such projects. "Every time they say NextGen, I say what about NowGen?" Byrnes notes. "If you're driving to work and you have GPS, does it get you to the office any faster? If you want to land somewhere, you are going to have to get on the conga line with everyone else."

Cynics see another motive behind all this: Many had expected the Bush administration to attempt to privatize the air-traffic control system to cut costs permanently. Canada, Australia, and several European nations have already gone that route, farming out much of their air- traffic control to private contractors. The results have been mixed: Advocates claim that private operators are far more cost-efficient than any government bureaucracy could be, thus freeing up precious funds to spend on improving technology. Indeed, Europe is moving much faster than the United States on installing satellite-based flight tracking—some airports will be getting the new technology this year. However, opponents of privatization fear that for-profit operators will cut staffing to dangerous levels to save money. What happens next may depend on who wins the November election. (Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, for one, is on record as supporting privatization.)

In the meantime, the current stalemate in Washington over changes in the way aviation is run has some observers concerned that it could take a shock on the order of a major accident to shake everyone out of complacency. "If you look back on the history of aviation and air-traffic control, major changes tend to occur only when there is a crisis," says John Hansman a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is an expert in air-traffic systems. "And while things have been bad in terms of capacity, they haven't been so severe that the public has been demanding an immediate response." But with another summer-from-hell at airports in the offing, that time may indeed have come.