Nearly six decades after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) set out a comprehensive plan for improving U.S. air traffic control (ATC), an external audit states that the FAA continues to fall woefully short of its own targets.
The FAA acknowledged last year that 51 of its 131 systems were unsustainable and a new audit, released Dec. 12, 2024, by the General Accounting Office (GAO), an independent arm of Congress, found that 17 of the FAA’s core systems are “especially concerning.”
It was presented the previous day to the Senate Sub-Committee on Aviation Safety, Operations and Innovation, by Kevin Walsh, director of information technology and cybersecurity at the GAO.
“Until the FAA takes urgent action to reduce the timeframes to replace critical and at-risk ATC systems, it will continue to rely on a large percentage of unsustainable systems to perform critical functions for safe air travel,” the GAO warned.
It’s believed this reliance will align with a projected increase in air traffic of 6.2 percent per year, the report noted.
Among other concerns, the GAO noted that the FAA – which operates under the umbrella of the Department of Transportation, employs 14,000 air traffic controllers, and has some 3,400 more in training after an aggressive recruitment drive – has no plans to modernize many systems for at least 10 years, and no plans at all for other updates, including to three systems that are 30 years old.
The latter include the Notice Air Missions (NOTAMs) system, which provides real-time weather, traffic and safety updates to aircrews on more than 50,000 flights a day. Problems forced a two-hour shutdown for all departing aircraft in January 2023, resulting in more than 1,300 flights being cancelled and nearly 10,000 delayed.
Eighteen systems, most of which are not identified in the audit report due to “sensitivity” issues, evidently are “unsustainable” due to spares shortages and funding shortfalls,” 33 face funding or capability shortfalls, and 54 face “possible shortfalls” in funding or capability.
Many of these concerns are well know. The FAA issued its first comprehensive plan for improving ATC services in February 1982. It estimated the cost at $10 billion by the late 1990s, but the GAO, citing delays and cost overruns, said in 1995 that the projected cost had ballooned to $36 billion.
The GAO said that it found in 2003 that the FAA’s plan was “far from complete” after two decades of work. “It did not recognize the technical complexity” of the plan, did not “realistically estimate the resources required,” or “adequately oversee its contractors’ activities.”
Congress set up a specific office that same year to oversee the FAA’s “NextGen” transition from ground-based radar control to satellite radar and digital communications. While the FAA released an updated plan in 2004, the latest GAO audit found, among other things, “unanticipated” system requirements, software development issues and “insufficient stakeholder involvement.”
A key deficiency in the current ground-based system is that much of it is still dependent on copper wiring for data transmission.
The coronavirus pandemic also had had an impact on the FAA’s agenda, as did government shutdowns due to partisan squabbling in Congress. The GAO said these “challenges” mean that the FAA, having spent at least $14 billion on the transition between 2007 and 2022, expects to burn through an additional $22 billion by the time NexGen is in place – which now is expected to be at least 2030.
“Without near-term modernization plans … critical ATC operations … may continue to be at risk for over a decade before being modernized or replaced,” the GAO stated.
When he testified on Dec. 11, 2024, before the Senate sub-committee, Walsh said legacy systems generally contribute to unmet mission needs, staffing issues and increased costs, as evidenced by what was happening at the FAA. Warning that the expected growth in air travel “will not help,” he cited the fact that the FAA took 10 years to complete its enroute automation modernization in 2015 but that it had needed a “refresh” after it was deployed without the supporting data technology.
Jason Ambrosi, a Boeing 767ER pilot at Delta Air Lines now halfway through his four-year term as president of the Air Line Pilots Association, pointed out to the sub-committee that his 79,000 members have “a vested interest” in the FAA not only sustaining legacy systems but also advancing technological and infrastructure improvements.
“The capabilities that have been implemented with NextGen have increased situational awareness and provided tools to help pilots make safe decisions through performance-based navigation, data, communication and ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast),” he said.
“However, the system’s potential isn’t being fully realized in part because many airliners aren’t properly equipped to take advantage of these updated capabilities. As a result, pilots and air traffic controllers are forced to use workarounds.”
That enables aircrews to operate with outdated equipment in an increasingly complex environment, a situation that “runs counter to the anticipated benefits of Nextgen,” Ambrosi said. “While Congress has provided the funding requested each year by the FAA during the annual appropriations process, there remains a significant shortfall in numerous maintenance and modernization efforts.
“Resources have not kept up with inflation and effectively require the agency to prioritize sustainment to the detriment of modernization and infrastructure needs. The FAA must ask Congress for its true needs in order to sustain the legacy systems and make greater headway on Nextgen to improve the NAS for pilots and all users.”
