U.S. needs to speed FAA systems modernization -- Buttigieg

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Monday the United States needs to "pick up the pace" on its efforts to modernize aviation computer systems after a pilot messaging database outage forced a nationwide groundstop on Jan 11.

Buttigieg told Reuters in an interview the Biden administration plans to seek from Congress "the resources needed to accelerate these system changes" at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He said it was important to look beyond the recent outage.

"The broader context is aging systems and growing demand. I don't want this to be 'whack-a-mole' where we figured out one flavor of problem on one system... only to face another one later on."

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)