Air Traffic Control Systems: Ambitious New Modernization Effort Needs to Improve Cost and Schedule Planning

The FAA's new Brand New Air Traffic Control System initiative aims to modernize communication, surveillance and weather systems years ahead of prior schedules, with Congress appropriating $12.5 billion in July 2025 for the first phase alone. A second phase, expected to cost roughly $10.2 billion more, has no start or completion date at all.

GAO's audit found the FAA has no lifecycle cost estimate for the project and no integrated master schedule; instead the agency is juggling 11,389 separate, uncoordinated project schedules, which has already led to installations being scheduled at the same sites without regard for disrupting controller operations. FAA officials told auditors they plan to fix this eventually, but offered no timeline. GAO notes over 75 percent of the FAA's existing 138 systems are already unsustainable or close to it, and warns that speed without planning risks repeating decades of cost overruns and delays.

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