Our air traffic controllers can learn from the routers. They are the real beauty of the Internet. Routers reroute information around any system problems or shutdowns. If the traffic is too heavy in New York City, your information may arrive via Philadelphia with some packets arriving via Denver. It's simply a matter of finding the most efficient route.
Physical distance means nothing in cyberspace.
The Internet was developed in 1970 by ARPAnet, the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense. It was designed to allow the scientific community to communicate with each other and with the Department of Defense. It was specifically designed to survive a nuclear attack that would have cut off normal communications, like telephones, because it's self-healing. That means if one part is shutdown, the routers reroute traffic around the shutdown. It fixes itself.