Recently, thousands of flights were canceled or delayed because of a Federal Aviation Administration system outage — leaving travelers stranded and frustrated. The incident is a wake-up call for how risky it can be to rely on a single system to drive an entire industry. When it breaks, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

But the FAA isn’t alone. Most Americans will likely be shocked to learn that credit card users are similarly vulnerable.

Visa and Mastercard dominate the U.S. credit card industry — controlling 80 percent of the market. So, chances are that the card you have in your wallet is powered by one of these two industry giants. Query: What happens if one of the network systems fails because of a technical glitch or even an attack from another country? Consumers would be cut off from a primary payment method to purchase everything from food to gas.

This is not a thought experiment. Credit card networks have encountered blackouts before. Last year, Visa and Mastercard holders experienced processing issues across the United States. In 2021, cards using major payment processor TSYS failed — leaving businesses ranging from restaurants to ballparks unable to accept credit cards. And in 2018, Mastercard apologized for transactions being blocked for customers worldwide resulting from an outage.

With the growing competency of unfriendly governments to wage cyber warfare, it’s not difficult to imagine a coordinated attack that cripples a credit card network for days, if not weeks. Remember the hack on the Colonial Pipeline just two years ago?

But unlike the FAA, which operates on a single integrated system because of safety, Visa and Mastercard don’t have an excuse. The companies have monetary reasons to freeze out the competition, leaving consumers vulnerable. To make it happen, the tag team uses its considerable market leverage to enter exclusivity contracts with banks and secure a duopoly market position.

Alternative credit card networks to Visa and Mastercard provide the same service. And if these networks were allowed to compete on an even playing field, consumers would enjoy a safety net. That way, if Visa or Mastercard were to experience an outage, a merchant could tap into the alternative network on a consumer’s credit card to complete a transaction.

Federal legislation was debated in 2022 and will likely be reintroduced this year to accomplish that. Called the Credit Card Competition Act, the bill would require banks with more than $100 billion in assets to include at least two unaffiliated processing networks on the credit cards they issue. In practice, the policy would provide merchants with more options for ordering purchases and consumers with more paths to access credit.

As an added benefit, the legislation also addresses China UnionPay, a state-owned financial services corporation with a seat at the table to help set security protocols for the credit card industry in the United States.

China has proven it will exploit any opening to get an edge on Americans. The country has used its ties to American businesses to steal upward of $600 billion in intellectual property. Chinese-owned medical companies have shared American’s private genetic information — including DNA — with the Chinese government. And the Chinese-owned TikTok has collected and passed along data from American cell phones.

Is it a stretch to believe China has a nefarious agenda for inserting itself into the U.S. credit card market? That’s why, under the Credit Card Competition Act, the Chinese Communist Party puppet would be banned from processing transactions in the United States.

Ask anyone stuck in an airport while the FAA attempted to address its outage and they’ll tell you: Americans cannot put all of their eggs in one basket. Congress should take the FAA’s outage as a wake-up call and pass the Credit Card Competition Act before the same outage hits American wallets.