The federal government has selected two companies to replace 612 radar systems across the country dating back to the 1980s as part of a plan. A multi-billion dollar overhaul National air traffic control system.
transportation secretary Sean Duffy The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday that the contractor RTX The Spanish company Indra will replace the radar system by the summer of 2028. The administration has set an ambitious goal of completing the overhaul by the end of 2028, near the end of President Donald Trump’s current term.
“Our radar network is outdated and long overdue for replacement. Many units have exceeded their expected service life, making them increasingly expensive to maintain and difficult to support,” said FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford.
Much of the FAA’s $3 billion equipment budget is used to maintain the fragile old system, which in some places still relies on floppy disks. Some equipment is old and no longer produced, so the FAA sometimes has to find spare parts on planes eBay.
technical glitch Last spring, the radars of air traffic controllers managing planes around Newark Liberty International Airport were knocked out twice, and the problems caused thousands of flight cancellations and delays at the major hub airport.
redundancy Systems within the system help keep flights safe, but in many cases both the primary and backup systems fail, such as what happened at the facility in Philadelphia that guides planes in and out of Newark Airport.
The FAA did not immediately provide a cost estimate for the new radar system, which will replace 14 different existing radar systems in use across the country and will simplify maintenance and repairs.
The FAA has committed more than $6 billion of the $12.5 billion approved by Congress for the overhaul, but Duffy said another $20 billion is needed to complete the project. The agency has replaced more than a third of the outdated copper wires the system relied on with modern connections such as fiber optic lines and hired a Pelaton Supervise work.