FAA Got $12.5 Billion For Air Traffic Control—They Want $30 Billion More But May Light It On Fire

Congress gave the FAA $12.5 billion for its air traffic control overhaul. GAO now says the agency still lacks a reliable estimate of the full cost and an integrated master schedule. We need the new equipment, but pouring more money into the same management structure isn’t enough. The September 14 watchdog report found 11,389 individual project schedules that weren’t integrated. Work at the same facilities wasn’t generally coordinated to minimize interference with controllers. They have a recipe for disrupting the air traffic control system, but not clearly for actually fixing it. There’s a real management failure that needs to be addressed before $30 billion in additional taxpayer funds can be productively spent. On this week’s Airlines Confidential, Scott McCartney acknowledges those problems but argues Congress must fund the work, saying “There should be no pushback” over higher costs. He’s right that delaying essential replacements can leave us relying on equipment that’s already failing. But pushback over the management of this program is necessary if we’re going to actually succeed in getting improvements. A credible cost estimate and a coordinated installation schedule ought to be a bare minimum. The FAA Has Been Trying This For Decades I wrote when the administration announced its new plan in May 2025 that upgrading the technology without fixing the institution repeated the approach that had failed for decades. GAO documented more than $14 billion spent on NextGen through fiscal 2022, with completion pushed from the original 2025 target to at least 2030. Even before this latest overhaul, GAO had asked for an updated lifecycle cost estimate. Its May 2026 follow-up said it was still waiting for estimates through 2030. They found roughly half the old copper connections had been replaced. We’re getting something for the initial $12.5 billion. Fund The Service Through Its Users, Rather Than Relying On Congress Air traffic control needs long-term capital planning. New communications, surveillance and controller systems have to work together, get tested and installed while the existing system keeps operating. Annual appropriations cycles don’t work well for this. GAO’s review of the FAA’s fiscal 2026 budget describes a data communications deployment running 51 months late, with the 2019 shutdown among the causes, alongside technical problems, staffing constraints and Covid. I’d fund the air navigation service provider directly through charges to users, and let it borrow against that revenue to make long-term investments. Airlines and other operators should pay for the service they use, with passengets ultimately bearing the cost of the system. Aviation users already provide much of the FAA’s regular funding through the Airport and Airway Trust Fund. Ticket, segment, fuel and other aviation taxes flow into it. But spending that money still depends on congressional appropriations. And they’re now asking for tens of billions of deficit financing. Separate The Operator From The Regulator The FAA shouldn’t both run the air traffic control system and regulate its safety. It already has an Air Traffic Safety Oversight Service outside the operating organization. But both ultimately sit inside the FAA. That’s less independence than an outside regulator overseeing an operator with its own leadership and obligations. The FAA regulating itself explains a decades-long lack of accountability. The regulator should be able to demand corrective action without also being responsible for defending the operation’s performance. The operator needs leaders who know how to run a complex service and deliver technology, with authority over hiring, procurement and implementation and consequences when they don’t deliver. I laid out the Canadian alternative in July. NAV CANADA has operated since 1996 as a private nonprofit without equity shareholders. It funds operations and capital needs through customer charges and debt. Transport Canada remains the safety regulator. Its 15-member board includes commercial airlines, business and general aviation, employees, government and independent directors. Commercial airlines choose four members. NAV CANADA raised its charges this September as it continued recovering from the pandemic and funding investment. User revenue falls in a downturn, so the operator needs reserves and borrowing capacity. A monopoly also needs transparent charges, a way to challenge them, and protections against favoring its biggest customers. This model works better, but even moving air traffic control into a separate government entity would be a start. That would separate out the service provision from regulation, and could allow a management reset because incumbent leadership has failed to deliver. Topics on this page