The FAA has not developed a reliable lifecycle cost estimate or an integrated master schedule for its Brand New Air Traffic Control System (BNATCS), according to a GAO report released Monday.
The first phase is scheduled for completion by December 2028 and covers upgrades to communications, surveillance, weather, training and other systems.
Cost Estimates Incomplete
Congress appropriated $12.5 billion for the modernization effort in July 2025, and the FAA plans to use most of that funding for Phase 1. GAO said the agency provided high-level Phase 1 cost estimates in June but could not provide supporting analysis. Those estimates exclude government costs, most Phase 1 operating costs and all Phase 2 costs. FAA has estimated Phase 2 will require about $10.2 billion, excluding facilities, but has not established a start or completion date.
“While accelerating this modernization is critical, FAA’s lack of a reliable lifecycle cost estimate and an integrated master schedule introduce heightened risk to BNATCS,” GAO said.
The watchdog said those shortcomings increase the likelihood of cost overruns, delays and missed performance targets.
Thousands of Separate Schedules
GAO also found that the FAA is managing 11,389 individual Phase 1 project schedules instead of a single integrated schedule. The report said that approach can result in several projects being planned at the same facility without coordinating installation work to reduce effects on air traffic operations. FAA officials told GAO they intend to address the issue but had not established a timeline.
The agency has made progress on several Phase 1 projects. As of May, FAA reported replacing 2,560 of 5,170 aging copper connections with high-speed fiber-optic cables and plans to complete voice-radio modernization nine years earlier than previously scheduled. GAO recommended that the FAA prioritize development of a reliable lifecycle cost estimate and integrated Phase 1 schedule. The Transportation Department partially agreed with both recommendations.
Creating an integrated schedule and cost for such a large, complex system is no joke. I had to do one for another large federal modernization project back in the 1990s. Figuring out all of the tasks, relationships, resource requirements and costs is a monster. The best way to deal with it is to carve it into smaller projects that are more manageable. I looks like the FAA has done that to some extent but the projects might still be too large. When the program is as large as this, you are pushed to come up with a long term architecture (scope), schedule and cost when you don’t really have enough information to do that accurately. On a 10-year program politics, leadership changes, technology changes and staffing changes wreak havoc on project schedules and costs.