GAO: FAA Lacks Reliable Cost Estimate and Master Schedule for Air Traffic Control Overhaul

The Government Accountability Office said in a report released Monday that the Federal Aviation Administration has not developed a reliable lifecycle cost estimate or an integrated master schedule for its Brand New Air Traffic Control System, known as BNATCS. Congress appropriated $12.5 billion for the modernization effort in July 2025, with most of that funding directed at Phase 1, covering upgrades to communications, surveillance, weather, training and other systems, scheduled for completion by December 2028.

GAO said the FAA provided high-level Phase 1 cost estimates in June but could not supply supporting analysis, and that those estimates exclude government costs, most Phase 1 operating costs and all Phase 2 costs. The FAA has separately estimated Phase 2 will require approximately $10.2 billion, excluding facilities. GAO also found the FAA is managing 11,389 individual Phase 1 project schedules rather than a single integrated schedule, and warned this can result in multiple projects being planned at the same facility without coordinating installation work, creating unnecessary disruption to air traffic operations. FAA officials told GAO they intend to address the issue but had not established a timeline.

The agency has made some progress on Phase 1: as of May, the FAA reported replacing 2,560 of 5,170 aging copper connections with high-speed fiber-optic cables, and said it 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 an integrated Phase 1 schedule; the Department of Transportation partially agreed with both recommendations.

This finding fits a broader category of large federal infrastructure programs where funding is appropriated before the underlying cost and schedule baselines are fully built out, leaving oversight bodies unable to verify whether the money committed matches the work required. GAO's own words captured the risk directly: the lack of a reliable lifecycle cost estimate and integrated master schedule "introduce heightened risk to BNATCS," raising the likelihood of cost overruns, delays and missed performance targets.

Air traffic control modernization depends on sequencing thousands of facility-level projects so that installation work at any single site does not collide with other upgrades happening in parallel. Managing 11,389 separate schedules instead of one integrated plan makes that coordination harder to see, let alone manage, across a national system where disruption at one facility can ripple into surrounding airspace.

What happens next depends on whether the FAA commits to a timeline for consolidating its Phase 1 schedules and whether it can produce supporting analysis behind its Phase 1 and Phase 2 cost figures. The Department of Transportation's partial agreement with GAO's recommendations leaves open how much of the fix gets implemented before Phase 1's December 2028 completion target.