The federal government has selected two companies to replace 612 radar systems nationwide dating back to the 1980s as part of a program A multi-billion dollar comprehensive overhaul For the country’s air traffic control system.
Transport Secretary Sean Duffy The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday that contractors RTX and Spanish company Indra will replace the radar systems by the summer of 2028. The administration has set an ambitious goal of completing the repair by the end of 2028, near the end of President Donald Trump’s current term.
“Our radar network is aging and long overdue for replacement,” said FAA Administrator Brian Bedford. “Many units have exceeded their intended service life, making them increasingly expensive to maintain and difficult to support.”
The FAA has spent most of its $3 billion equipment budget just maintaining the fragile old system that still relies on floppy disks in some places. Some of the equipment is old and no longer manufactured, so the FAA sometimes has to search for replacement parts on eBay.
Technical malfunctions The radars of air traffic controllers running planes around Newark Liberty International Airport malfunctioned twice last spring, and the problems led to thousands of cancellations and delays at the main airport.
Repetition The system helps keep flights safe, but there have been a number of occasions when both the primary system and the backup system failed, as happened at the Philadelphia facility that directed planes to and from Newark Airport.
The FAA did not immediately provide a cost estimate for the new radar systems, which will replace 14 different radar systems in use across the country and will simplify maintenance and repairs.
The FAA has already committed more than $6 billion of the $12.5 billion Congress agreed to pay for the repair, but Duffy said another $20 billion will be needed to complete the project. The agency has already replaced more than a third of the old copper wires on which the system relied with modern connections such as fiber optic lines, and has also appointed a national security contractor called Peraton To supervise the work.