GAO Report Urges Air Traffic Control Modernization

The 17-page report was commissioned by GAO after an “aging” ATC system outage caused a shutdown of the national airspace in 2023. This prompted the FAA to conduct an operational risk assessment to evaluate the sustainability of all ATC systems.

“Of the 138 systems, 51 (37 percent) were deemed unsustainable by FAA and 54 (39 percent) were potentially unsustainable,” the GAO report stated. “Many unsustainable and potentially unsustainable systems have critical operational impacts on the safety and efficiency of the national airspace.”

In September 2024, GAO found several “weaknesses” in how the FAA managed investments to modernize these systems. 

“As of May 2024, completion dates for planned investments for systems that GAO deemed especially concerning were at least six to 10 years away,” the report said. “Four such systems did not have associated investments.”

The GAO report also said the FAA has had long-standing challenges with maintaining ATC systems. The reasons for these challenges, according to cited FAA officials, include the unavailability of parts and retirement of technicians with expertise in maintaining the aging systems.

“In addition, there has been dramatic growth in airspace demand since the older systems were initially implemented,” the report stated. “These challenges can impact FAA’s ability to meet its mission.”

The report gives the example of the Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) system being over 30 years old. GAO said that on January 11, 2023, the system became temporarily unavailable to users, prompting the FAA to ground all departing aircraft for two hours while it was being fixed.

“The outage caused over 1,300 flight cancellations and almost 10,000 flight delays throughout the day,” the report said. “Some airlines took several days to fully recover.”

While the report acknowledges FAA efforts over the past several decades to improve and modernize air traffic management, GAO pointed out that the agency has faced challenges with these efforts.

“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 air traffic,” according to the report. 

After the 2023 NOTAM system outage, the FAA’s operational risk assessment determined that of its 138 systems, 51 were unsustainable and 54 were potentially unsustainable. Of those combined 105 systems, 73 were deployed over 20 years ago, with 40 deployed over 30 years ago and six deployed over 60 years ago.

GAO gave the FAA 11 recommendations in individual reports to modernize its ATC system. The FAA agreed with 10 of those and partially agreed with one, and it has since fully addressed two of the recommendations.