Our Once and Future ATC System

The DOT and FAA forged ahead with plans to finish the $12.5 billion “down payment” part of a "brand-new ATC system by 2029, even as a 43-day government shutdown had harried the current system and forced air traffic controllers to work without pay.

This effort follows the FAA’s two-decade-long NextGen project, which made some improvements but didn’t create the modern system desired to supplant the legacy one controlling crewed aircraft traffic.

The aviation industry is obviously thrilled to have the government suddenly spending $12.5 billion to help the aging legacy ATC system get its legs under it again—Congress in July furnished the sum in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act following a series of communications and notam outages, along with intense scrutiny on controller shortages in the wake of the January 29 midair collision by Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (KDCA).

The industry is concerned about the effects of the government shutdown on National Airspace System (NAS) operations and whether the hiccup will happen again. The 2025 43-day shutdown broke the record at eight days more than the 35-day one in Trump’s first term, causing widespread outages as the FAA grappled with rolling controller shortages.

In announcing those rolling outages, DOT Secretary Sean Duffy maintained that the government was still pushing ahead on the plans for modernization but conceded that it was hampering controller recruitment efforts. At the end of the shutdown in November, he responded: “Now we can refocus our efforts on surging controller hiring and building the brand-new, state-of-the-art air traffic control system the American people deserve.”

However, at press time, another potential shutdown could happen.

Aviation advocacy groups in Washington, D.C., can disagree on some issues, but they all seem to be in favor of spending $12.5 billion immediately to improve the NAS. The Modern Skies coalition of 60 aviation and aerospace organizations, including business and general aviation groups, is backing DOT’s ATC upgrade plans. But at the same time, industry groups are adamant about the need to head off potential harms of any future government shutdown.

Legislation has been introduced in the House and the Senate aimed at funding the FAA should another shutdown occur. This is a problem that would be solved for the rest of the current fiscal year if Congress passes the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill covering the DOT, FAA, and other agencies. Ed Bolen, president and CEO of NBAA, sees passage as the highest priority.

Critical Time for Modernization

Meanwhile, the need for modernizing the aging ATC systems comes at a critical time. Not only did the system show its signs of wear over the past year, but new-entrant drones are being managed in a few places in U.S. low-altitude airspace with private Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management (UTM) systems using new concepts of operation. This is without any directions from air traffic controllers. The UTM system for new-entrant air vehicles has developed from a clean sheet of paper over a decade. How it will merge with the brand-new ATC system is not yet defined, but is looming large as a challenge.

The legacy ATC system update is starting with equipment such as new radars and telecommunications links that will roll out over the remaining three years of this administration. DOT wants another $20 billion from Congress to build out the new ATC system, but there is no certainty as to when this money might be appropriated.

In his first appearance before Congress as FAA administrator, Bryan Bedford reiterated that the initial $12.5 billion will fix what is necessary but not overhaul the system. The $12.5 billion would make the airspace more efficient, “but it would still be antiquated,” Bedford told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in December. “We need to make sure that modernization gets done, gets done on time, and achieves the results that we’ve set before this committee—which is to deploy new technology within the next three years.”

Plans are for use of off-the-shelf technology, “not some new technology that may or may not be created over the next several years,” he added. The FAA—in concert with the DOT—has “adopted a mantra of think slow, move fast, understanding what the end state of modernization needs to look like, and then determining how best to plot a course to get there as opposed to just let’s go out and spend money,” Bedford continued. With that in mind, officials have spent the last several months plotting what the end state of the National Airspace System should look like. “It’s an exciting vision,” he said.

Improving the Existing ATC System

The new ATC system and the shutdown were hot topics at Honeywell’s Aviation Leadership Summit on November 19 at the company’s offices in Washington, D.C., in the shadow of the Capitol Dome. 

Airlines 4 America (A4A) senior v-p for legislative and regulatory policy Sharon Pinkerton hit the nail on the head when she said, “It doesn’t matter if we have a newer ATC system if it’s going to be shut down for 40 days.” She was speaking on a panel on airspace integration and ATC modernization with Bob Buddecke, president of Electronics Solutions at Honeywell.

She did marvel at the speed with which DOT and the FAA are working on this new ATC system in 2025. Contracts had already been inked for radar services and voice switches, and the FAA and DOT in December selected Peraton—a spinoff from the Harris Corporation’s government IT services group—as the prime integrator to oversee the project. That selection was named just a few months after the request for solutions was released. “This is a different FAA; it has been remarkable,” Pinkerton said.

In his appearance before Congress, Bedford had provided insight into the selection of Peraton to act as a prime integrator. He said the organization will guide the FAA on modernization execution, particularly on challenging issues such as shifting from analog systems to digital systems. “These are not competencies the FAA has internally. We need assistance from people who’ve done this before. Peraton brings us that experience.”

At the Honeywell conference, Duffy also said the $12.5 billion received so far is for replacing equipment, including radars and voice switches, and replacing copper wires with fiber-optic cables as the FAA moves from analog to digital systems.

The FAA says it has already converted one-third of ATC’s copper wire to fiber, satellite, and wireless, deployed 148 radios to facilities, and provided surface awareness systems to 44 towers. And by the end of 2025, the agency had already committed half of the $12.5 billion, according to Bedford.

In January, the agency announced contracts with RTX and Indra to work with Peraton on radar replacement. Plans call to replace up to 612 radars by June 2028 with “modern, commercially available” surveillance radars. The work is to begin this quarter with replacements prioritizing high-traffic areas, the agency said.

“While our air travel system is the safest in the world, most of our radars date back to the 1980s. It’s unacceptable,” Duffy said in announcing the contract awards.

“Many of the units have exceeded their intended service life, making them increasingly expensive to maintain and difficult to support,” added Bedford. “We are buying radar systems that will bring production back to the U.S. and provide a vital surveillance backbone to the National Airspace System.”

Indra has also won a contract valued at up to $244.3 million to manufacture, test, and qualify up to 46,000 new radios, as well as provide support for 10 years. Under the contract, Indra is replacing legacy analog radio systems with next-generation digital radio equipment capable of both analog and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) operations.

Preparing for the New

However, at the Honeywell conference, Duffy explained that the $12.5 billion does not cover a new common automation platform (CAP) or new software—both considered critical for the brand-new ATC system. The new platform will allow the FAA to design ATC apps as the agency moves to an architecture not unlike the iPhone, which has access to new apps when they are developed.

In November, the FAA released a request for information on a CAP. Responses were due by December 19. The agency is eyeing replacements for systems including En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) and Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS) with a unified, modern platform, the agency said.

“The FAA is open to new ideas, new technologies, new procurement strategies, new implementation structures, and any other considerations that will enhance the common automation platform solution,” according to the agency.

Bedford said there will be four layers: one each for compute, the operating system, data, and applications. “This will unlock the pace of innovation that has been beyond the FAA’s grasp,” he said. The FAA wants to move siloed computing from 350 ATC facilities to the cloud to complete the move from an analog to a digital ATC system.

Once this platform is in, both en route and terminal facilities will be able to exchange digital data rather than being siloed, as is the case now with standalone automation systems. Only the local controllers can now see the data covering traffic in their area. 

Honeywell’s Buddecke said that, in addition to ATC improvements, the company would like to see more avionics equipment in air transport aircraft to counter things like runway incursions. Honeywell is in favor of the Rotor Act, which he said would create an orderly transition to ADS-B In and leverage the aviation community’s investment in ADS-B Out. The Senate unanimously passed this bill, S.2503, on December 17, and it goes to the House now. The bill would require all aircraft in designated airspace to be equipped with ADS-B In over a period of years.

As for the Remaining $20B…

Bob Poole, who directs transportation policy at the Reason Foundation and edits an ATC newsletter, said he has not noticed any interest in Congress in coming up with the extra appropriation. Poole is an advocate of privatizing the ATC system and said in the interview he hasn’t seen any interest in this lately, but a few days after our interview, the Washington Post editorial board endorsed ATC privatization. AOPA and NBAA strongly opposed privatization the last time it came up. In an interview with AIN, NBAA's Bolen noted that Bedford has been unequivocal that the FAA is not going down the privatization path.

Bolen said a lot of people say the U.S. should not emulate the current Canadian ATC system. “Canada’s ICAO safety rating (now privatized under Nav Canada) has gone from the 90s in 2005 to 65 now, a significant drop,” said Bolen in an interview with AIN. “There are significant delays at airports that are not that big or that complicated, and there isn’t a single airport in Canada in the top 15 in terms of the number of movements. They do not seem to have the ability to run it [the ATC system] without significant delays and enormous frustration for the airlines, pilots, and controllers.” Nav Canada was formed in 1995.

Rep Sharice Davids (D-Kansas), whose district includes Olathe (where Garmin is headquartered), said she and her colleagues are focused not only on how to bring the NAS up to date but to prepare it for the future and make sure it doesn’t fall further behind. She said working group meetings with the aviation industry have been invaluable in coming up with solutions that will work. “The meetings have been as pragmatic, substantive, and realistic as possible about the problems that are in front of us,” she said.

On a panel at the Honeywell gathering led by Bolen, House aviation subcommittee chairman Troy Nehls (R-Texas) from the Houston area questioned the request for additional funds, given the lack of significant progress in the past. “We do not have the answer on how to fix this problem and modernize the NAS,” Nehls said. “What the hell does that even mean?” In the government/industry working group meetings, he said he was floored on several occasions to learn that technology that has been around for decades, like fiber-optics, hasn’t been deployed. He asked industry members to explain why this happened, and they said it was because no one in the government was listening to them.

Bolen asked Nehls if the $12.5 billion was a down payment on ATC modernization. Nehls answered, “$12.5 billion is a lot of money.” Now that the DOT has it, "it is incumbent on me and everyone in Congress to make sure that we know where it is going to go. I think the federal government’s response to most tragedies [like the one at National Airport] is to throw money at it as if that is going to solve the problem, but that doesn’t necessarily do it. I am just not going to throw another $20 billion in their [the FAA/DOT team’s] direction if we can’t hold them accountable for the $12.5 billion, but I think they will produce results.”

Nehls noted that an Inspector General report found that only about 16% of NextGen was deployed after expenditures in the billions. He said he and Davis will be working together to try to have Congress come up with the additional money. But he said the ambitious three-year timeline may be unrealistic, and success will require alignment between industry, Congress, and the FAA.

Bolen said in an interview that the first phase of work is a “comprehensive and aggressive plan to move the foundation from analog to digital. That is so fundamental.” This will provide the needed tools to move in the direction of a common automated platform.

Working Remote

William (Bill) Payne is the project manager for the Colorado Department of Transportation, who is working to get a remote (a.k.a. digital) tower implemented to serve multiple ski airports in the mountains from one location in the flatlands. He told AIN in an interview that the FAA NextGen office is suddenly quite keen to move ahead with digital tower initiatives. He firmly believes these systems should be an integral part of any future ATC system in the U.S. He added that the FAA’s Bedford has seen the RTX/Frequentis system being tested at the FAA Tech Center and has expressed support for the concept as part of the new ATC system. In the meantime, remote/digital towers are making rapid advances in Europe and the rest of the world. 

Colorado wants to employ the RTX/Frequentis system once it is approved, which may happen soon. Lack of FAA support canceled CDOT’s initial remote tower project with Canada-based Searidge Technologies in 2023 at Northern Colorado Regional Airport (KFNL). FAA also tested a Saab remote tower system at Leesburg Executive Airport (KJYO) from 2015 to 2023, which was also shut down. Frequentis has deployed 16 digital towers outside of the U.S., so its system has already been approved by other civil aviation safety agencies. 

Payne leads a group of corporate pilots that meet regularly at Centennial Airport (KAPA) in Colorado. He hopes the FAA’s new ATC system doesn’t lead to negative side effects for business aviation, as air navigation improvements have at Denver International Airport. The FAA published RNAV STARS and RNP procedures used primarily by airline aircraft. At times, controllers break business jets off STARS procedures and send them “way the hell out west” before bringing them back in, Payne said. This puts business jets over high terrain where mountain waves can create moderate to severe turbulence. An old pilot adage in business aviation is that passengers don’t like having white caps on the martinis. Payne thinks any ATC improvements will be good for business aviation, but he, for one, will be keeping an eye out for unwanted side effects.

He noted that business aviation also got unwanted attention during the government shutdown but business and general aviation access was restored after the FAA imposed more than a week of operational limits at 40 airports, including an unprecedented curtailment of Part 91 and Part 135 operations at 12 major hub airports.

The Drone Factor

On a panel on airspace integration and ATC modernization at the Honeywell leadership summit, David Murphy of ANRA Technologies said there are two parallel ATC modernizations going on right now: one for crewed aircraft and one for uncrewed aircraft and drones.

Today, ANRA and other private providers of UTM systems and services are preclearing delivery drones in North Texas to then monitor and deconflict them in flight with digital data as they operate below 400 feet in the FAA’s UTM site. ANRA is one of the UTM providers working with Walmart. The retailer has ambitious plans to use drones to serve 1.5 million households in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area from 30 stores. Murphy said the drone community now must figure out how to integrate drone operations in the airspace without disrupting current crewed operations. “I see it all coming together very soon,” he said. ANRA is also working on many UTM projects worldwide.

Trajectory-based operations techniques (using time and constantly updated trajectories for planning) are used in UTM. It was the holy grail of the NextGen program, but it was not achieved. Alan Mulally, as a young engineer, experimented with the trajectory-based concept on a Boeing 737-200, so the idea has been around for a long time.

Things are different in some ways in Europe. A U.S.-style government shutdown cannot happen in Europe, according to Frédéric Deleau, executive v-p of Europe for the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations. However, air navigation services can and have been disrupted in Europe due to strikes and other events. Air navigation services are fragmented there, and controller salaries have been reduced during some funding disputes or low traffic periods during the pandemic.

Deleau said in a response to email questions that equipment is also diverse, and some systems are beyond typical desired life cycles of 15 to 20 years. A typical modernization project in Europe involves four steps: concept and specification; procurement and development; integration, validation, and training; and operational deployment. This cycle routinely spans 10 to 15 years with an additional 3 to 5 years needed to refine software, correct integration issues, and achieve full operational maturity under high traffic loads. He said a four-year ATC modernization program timeline is unprecedented.

Deleau said regarding privatization in Europe that even when air navigation service providers are reorganized to be somewhat private, the government usually retains a controlling golden share. He said there was no documented significant reduction in North Atlantic traffic during the U.S. government shutdown.

John Walker, who managed New York airspace at the FAA and is now a consultant who serves on U.S. and international standards committees, remembers the failed IBM Advanced Automation System (AAM) that was shuttered by the FAA in 1994 after a $100 million overrun.

He recalls that it also called for a layered system. IBM had little ATC experience, which is also true of Peraton, whose track record includes putting some Pentagon systems on the cloud.

Walker hopes the lessons have been learned from that AAM fiasco, so mistakes won’t be repeated this time. He was also at the FAA when PATCO controllers went out on sick leave the first time. He remembers it caused a sharp divide in the controller workforce between those who left the ATC facilities and those who stayed, and he wonders what the effect of post-shutdown $10,000 government bonuses for controllers who stayed on the job will do to team morale now.

As for Shutdowns

Nehls stressed to attendees at the Honeywell event that such a shutdown “can never happen again.” He has co-sponsored a bipartisan bill along with the chairman and ranking member of the Transportation and Infrastructure committee to ensure that controllers and others at the FAA managing airspace will be paid if there is another government shutdown.

This is the Aviation Funding and Solvency Act (H.R 6086). It would use funds in the Aviation Insurance Revolving Fund to cover critical services. The fund covers war risk insurance claims from airlines that were terminated in 2014 and now has $2.6 billion on account. “Just because Congress can’t get its act together and members act like children at times, why should the American people suffer as a result?” Nehls asked. Later in November, Nehls said he will not run for reelection to Congress. His twin brother plans to run for the seat.

In a prepared statement for the Senate aviation subcommittee on November 19, Bolen wrote that the shutdown had a significant impact on business aviation as it “delayed safety approvals, jeopardized investments, reduced safety margins, and restricted airspace capacity.”

Meanwhile, the Senate has a bill titled the Aviation Funding Stability Act of 2025 (S. 1045) introduced by Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) in March. It would tap the Airport and Airway Trust Fund to pay for FAA operations during a shutdown.

—Kerry Lynch contributed to this article