A new federal watchdog report has raised concerns about the ability of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to manage the nation’s air traffic safely and efficiently because of its reliance on aging and potentially unsustainable air traffic control systems.
The House Committee on Transportation asked the nonpartisan GAO to review the FAA’s modernization of its aging systems, according to the report. The resulting audit took place between August 2023 and September 2024.
The report also highlighted the urgency for the FAA to improve its oversight of critical systems.
The findings are based on a 2023 operational risk assessment conducted by the FAA and other information provided by the agency, as well as interviews with FAA officials.
The risk assessment evaluated 138 air traffic control systems. Of those, 51 were deemed unsustainable and an additional 54 were classified as potentially unsustainable.
The report points out that 58 of these systems have “critical operational impacts” on the safety and efficiency of the national airspace. While the report says that the FAA is managing 64 investments to modernize 90 of these systems, the GAO found that some modernization efforts may take another six to 13 years to complete.
According to the GAO, the FAA’s inability to keep pace with modernization is compounded by challenges including the unavailability of parts, “reduced technical expertise in outdated technologies,” and increasing demand for airspace.
More than 70 percent of the unsustainable systems face issues such as difficulty in sourcing replacement parts or finding qualified technicians. One critical example is the failure of the Notice to Air Missions system in January 2023, which led to a two-hour nationwide ground stop affecting almost 10,000 flights. The system is more than 30 years old.
“FAA’s reliance on a large percentage of aging and unsustainable or potentially unsustainable collection of ATC systems introduces risks to FAA’s ability to ensure the safe, orderly, and expeditious flow of up to 50,000 flights per day,” the report concluded.
“While the agency is working to modernize many of these systems, FAA can take well over a decade to do so for some of the most critical and at-risk systems.”
The GAO further expressed concern that although the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 requires the FAA to report to Congress on legacy systems by 2026, there may be insufficient information on how the FAA is managing risks in the interim.
One of the key issues identified by the GAO is the FAA’s delay in establishing cost, schedule, and performance baselines for its investments.
The report said that the FAA’s Joint Resources Council, which oversees billions of dollars in spending, has failed to ensure that modernization investments are delivered in manageable segments and has not regularly reviewed high-risk areas, increasing the likelihood of system failures and cost overruns.
The GAO made seven recommendations to the FAA, including that it ensure that modernization investments establish baselines more quickly, increase oversight of pre-baselined projects, and report to Congress on how it is mitigating risks associated with unsustainable systems.
In its formal response to the GAO, the FAA acknowledged the need for improvement while defending its ongoing efforts.
“The FAA is committed to the safety of the National Airspace (NAS) and recognizes the importance of system modernization and is working diligently to maintain and upgrade all NAS systems,” the agency stated in a letter dated Aug. 29.
The agency stated it had “taken significant actions to identify and implement system upgrades and modernization.“ The FAA will continue to prioritize ensuring the safety of the nation’s air space, the letter said, while ”balancing competing priorities for legacy system replacements.”
The FAA agreed with six of the GAO’s seven recommendations, including the need to expedite the establishment of baselines for key projects such as the FAA Enterprise Network Services and Aeronautical Information Management Modernization Enhancement.
However, it partially concurred with the recommendation to increase oversight of pre-baselined investments, saying that adequate guidance already exists for those not requiring additional resources.
The GAO noted the urgency of the situation, saying that air traffic is projected to grow by an average of 6.2 percent annually, which will place greater strain on the outdated systems.
The report said that “without near-term modernization plans for these systems, critical [air traffic control] operations that these systems support may continue to be at-risk for over a decade before being modernized or replaced.”
The office of U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg did not respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times before publication of this article. The FAA acknowledged receipt of The Epoch Times’ request but did not provide a comment before publication.
