ATC Modernization Is Actually Already Well Underway

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Reassuringly, work appears to have gotten well underway since being announced roughly a year ago. Investment for the overhaul was approved as part of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill in July 2025. Then this April, the FAA confirmed that almost 50% of all copper wires across the network had been replaced, 270 radio sites had been converted, and 17 towers had started using electronic flight strips.

While this may sound impressive, the truth is that work cannot be put off anymore. As transportation secretary Sean P. Duffy said upon unveiling the plans in May last year: “Building this new system is an economic and national security necessity, and the time to fix it is now.” This came after a string of issues and incidents attributable to the aging technology still in use. In all, something had to be done.

In the preceding days before Duffy’s announcement, malfunctions of ATC hardware at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) had laid bare the stark need for a new system. Screens used by controllers had suffered 30 to 90-second “blackouts” in late April. At least five members of staff were reported to have taken trauma leave following the incident. A controller separately told NBC: “It’s like driving your car, knowing the brakes will go out any time.” With the incident, the situation had reached a climax, and the government had to act.

ATC Overhaul Dangerously Overdue

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A Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) network out of Philadelphia was found to have been the root of the problem at Newark. This itself is said to have since been fixed with the installation of a fiber optic cable. Unfortunately, though, the screen malfunction at Newark was not an isolated incident, having actually been seen at the airport several times.

Just a few months prior, in January, a far more catastrophic event had also taken place at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). Some 67 people lost their lives when a US Army Black Hawk helicopter and PSA Airlines-operated American Airlines regional jet landing at the airport collided.

ATC staff were found in the aftermath of the crash by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to have been suffering from “degraded performance due to […] high workload”. The response to the tragedy saw political pressure build and questions asked around why the FAA’s ATC modernization efforts were lagging. A US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report then found that 37% and 39% of ATC’s 138 systems in the country were “unsustainable” and “potentially unsustainable” respectively. Issues included “unavailability of parts, reduced technical expertise in outdated technologies, unanticipated system requirements, and growth in airspace demand”.

Avoiding Airspace Closures

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Progress does indeed appear to have been made, in part fueled by a new sense of urgency from the government and FAA alike. Indeed, the FAA’s April update came after administrator Bryan Bedford said in December that $6 billion would be allocated to telecom infrastructure and radar surveillance improvements by the year’s end, or in just over two weeks at the time. The FAA had already made public that it wanted around $20 billion on top of the $12.5 billion already pledged by the Trump administration at that point, too.

Part of the initial plans, which appears to have been supported by undoubtedly deep pockets, saw technology firm Peraton tasked with setting up a new digital command center, alongside replacing copper connections. Designed to allow traffic managers to reroute flights around localized system failures in real time, the center will effectively allow individual facilities to be taken offline for upgrades without spreading chaos to the broader network.

Bedford had told the House and Senate Aviation Subcommittees in December that the goal was “think slow, then act fast”. By this, he meant rigorously planning in advance to minimize the risks of issues and to allow a smooth delivery once work is underway. Time will tell if Bedford and Peraton can live up to the promise, but the ambition is there. What had previously been laid out as a 20-year plan from 2018, for instance, the overhaul of the copper network should now be finished by mid-2027, Bedford declared in December.

Plenty Left To Do In ATC Modernization

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How successful efforts are to minimize flight disruption will rest in how well this idea of meticulous planning is carried out. Should it be successfully implemented, individual links in the network could be replaced rapidly in phases. The control center should be able to pick up the slack in the meantime, hopefully without anyone even noticing.

Experience tells us that ambitious major infrastructure plans, just like this, often face delays, and a look at the work left to do really puts in perspective how huge the effort will have to be if the entire US ATC network is updated as desired by 2028. Though over half of the new high-speed network connections have been installed, per government data, other upgrades are further from completion.

Brand New Air Traffic Control System (BNATCS) upgrades

Of the 612 new radar systems proposed, as shown above, four are reported to have been fitted so far, for example. Electronic flight strips have replaced their paper predecessors at 17 of 89 airports, meanwhile. This means these two initiatives, respectively, are 1% and 19% finished. While the government figures also show varying levels of completion across other installations, there is little doubt that the mountain of remaining work is vast.

Flight Delays Already An Issue Anyway

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Though the FAA faces pressure to manage the workload so that flights do not face disruption, it does look to have the benefit of public and government support. Delays have increasingly intensified in the US in recent years, so an argument could be made that any improvement, through whatever means necessary, should be well-received.

Analysis of Bureau of Transportation Statistics data last year found that by 2024, the likelihood of a three-hour delay to a flight in the US was four times higher than in 1990. Behind this decline is, in part, the increasingly outdated system of managing flights.

Faults lead to aircraft being told to effectively space out, eating into how much traffic can land or take off at an airport, say. Add in the likes of staff shortages, and the US’ ATC is something that is widely overdue for a repair. With the events of last year, the public got a glimpse into how necessary this was.

Upgrade Attempts Actually Years Old

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This really sums up the sad truth behind the seemingly sudden action to address ATC’s issues. Realistically, it was not unknown that the network was no longer fit for purpose when outages struck Newark in April of last year. Nor was it unknown when tragedy hit in Washington the January before. The incidents just brought attention to how urgently upgrades were needed.

These have, in fact, been attempted for years. Per GOA, the FAA had spent over $14 billion on the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) between 2007 and 2022. Delays, including due to “insufficient stakeholder involvement”, saw the plan disappoint, though. Now, renewed interest in revitalizing the industry through what has been dubbed the “Brand New Air Traffic Control System” has emerged. This means the taps have also turned on in terms of funding – something the FAA will hope can mean a successful overhaul without further delays or groundings of aircraft.