The FAA gave us two very different looks at air traffic control modernization this week. On Monday, the agency launched an artificial intelligence-supported system designed to predict congestion before it develops. Hours later, a telecommunications failure at Philadelphia TRACON disrupted traffic throughout the Northeast after a primary circuit failed while a backup fiber-optic line was already down.
The timing was coincidental, of course. Even so, the two events captured a lot of the scope of what the FAA is trying to accomplish. The agency is replacing communications equipment, radios, radars, voice switches and controller displays while introducing software that can analyze traffic conditions days before an airplane leaves the ground. Congress has already committed billions of dollars to that work, and the FAA and Transportation Department are now asking for billions more.
The Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories system, or SMART, began limited operations around Washington, D.C., on Monday. According to the FAA, the system centralizes about 200 data streams that include weather, flight paths, traffic flow and controller staffing. Its AI-supported engine analyzes those inputs to help aviation specialists anticipate demand, weather and airspace constraints before they develop into larger traffic-management problems.
SMART operates within the FAA’s broader Flow Management Data and Services program, which the agency plans to use as the technological backbone of the Air Traffic Control System Command Center.
The FAA awarded Air Space Intelligence a 12-year contract worth up to $875 million for FMDS and SMART in June. The contract calls for software that helps the FAA and aircraft operators coordinate schedules, routes and capacity before departure.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has emphasized that controllers and other aviation specialists will continue making the decisions. SMART supplies forecasts and recommendations, while people remain responsible for managing the airspace.
The gradual rollout has also answered some concerns that emerged before launch. Airline officials had questioned how quickly the FAA intended to introduce the system and how SMART would interact with existing traffic-management procedures. The agency has since limited the initial deployment and plans to evaluate the system before expanding it more broadly.
“If it works as we think it can, it will do more to reduce delays and cancellations than anything that’s happened in decades,” United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said in the FAA’s announcement.
Airlines for America has also endorsed the project, while American, Delta and Southwest have expressed support for a measured rollout.
Interestingly, though, controllers have taken a more cautious position.
“NATCA has not been involved in the design, testing, or implementation of SMART and therefore cannot speak to its effect on the air traffic control workforce at this time,” the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said in a statement reported by NPR.
The union also said new technology should complement the training, experience and judgment of controllers.
Traffic-flow management depends on forecasts of demand, weather, airport capacity and available airspace, so earlier and more accurate information could give managers additional options before congestion forces ground stops, reroutes or other restrictions. The system will have to actually demonstrate those benefits as the FAA expands it beyond Washington, though.
The Infrastructure Underneath It
However it turns out, it at the very least carries a great deal of potential for the future of air traffic control in the U.S.
But while the FAA introduced SMART in Washington on Monday, an increasingly familiar infrastructure problem developed about 150 miles away.
A primary telecommunications circuit serving Philadelphia TRACON failed Monday morning. The FAA then discovered that a backup fiber-optic line between New Brunswick and Newark, New Jersey, had been severed during unrelated construction. As we reported earlier this week, the FAA initially paused arrivals into Philadelphia, Newark and Teterboro before restrictions spread to JFK and LaGuardia. Boston also temporarily stopped accepting arrivals as diverted traffic accumulated.
Reuters reporting later confirmed that around 9,500 flights were ultimately delayed or canceled during the disruption. More than 100 others had to be diverted, as well. The FAA said it restored normal operations after crews repaired the telecommunications links, but the incident was an ill-timed reminder of how quickly a problem at one facility can affect traffic across an entire region.
Of course, that is not for a lack of effort on the FAA’s part. The agency has already made telecommunications a central part of its modernization program. Administrator Bryan Bedford told lawmakers this month that the agency had replaced more than 64% of its copper-based Time-Division Multiplexing network as of Sept. 1. The FAA had also converted more than 403 radio sites, installed surface-awareness systems at 101 airports and moved 21 towers from paper flight strips to electronic displays.
The agency plans to replace 5,170 copper lines, transition nearly 30,000 telecommunications services to internet protocol, upgrade radios at 1,581 sites and replace 450 legacy voice switches. FAA officials have accelerated several of those programs by years, including work that previously extended into the 2030s.
After Monday’s outage, Duffy said the redesigned telecommunications network would use additional routes into FAA facilities so the loss of one or two connections would not create the same kind of disruption. Bedford has also said the agency expects to eliminate its remaining outdated copper telecommunications wiring by September 2027.
But as mentioned above, the outage might have felt to many increasingly normalized at this point. It followed other communications failures involving Philadelphia TRACON, including problems that affected Newark back in 2025. FAA upgrades after those incidents included new fiber connections using separate communications paths and a temporary satellite backup.
Monday showed that, even with repairs and new connections, redundancy issues remain an active engineering problem.
New predictive software may improve how the FAA manages demand several hours from now, while telecommunications determine whether the controller can talk to an airplane right now. A modern NAS needs both capabilities to work reliably.
Modernization Costs Keep Rising
The FAA has also been learning more about what its accelerated schedule will cost.
Congress provided $12.5 billion last year for the first phase of the Brand New Air Traffic Control System initiative, including $9 billion for systems modernization and $3.5 billion for facilities. As we reported last week, Bedford told lawmakers that Phase 1 will actually cost about $16 billion. The agency plans to use money from its facilities and equipment budget to cover the difference.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has identified further increases within that estimate. The FAA received $9.03 billion for the systems portion of Phase 1, while its June estimate put those projects at $10.615 billion. Telecommunications account for $1.16 billion of the increase, climbing from $4.75 billion in appropriations to an estimated $5.91 billion. Information displays, flight-data systems and weather equipment also require additional money under the FAA’s current estimates.
Tariffs have added another cost. Bedford told lawmakers last week that tariffs will add about $100 million to the modernization program, primarily through radar purchases. Collins Aerospace and Indra are moving some production into U.S. facilities as they fulfill FAA radar and digital-radio contracts. Reuters reported that the two companies have received radar contracts totaling about $780 million, while Indra also holds a separate $244 million digital-radio contract.
The tariff expense ultimately represents a small portion of the overall program, but even so, it adds to a budget that was already changing. The FAA is accelerating its schedules, replacing more telecommunications equipment than originally funded and coordinating construction at facilities that have to remain operational throughout the work.
And then, this week also brought another funding request. On Tuesday, Duffy said the administration will seek an additional $30 billion from Congress for aviation infrastructure. As we reported Tuesday, the proposal would direct about $10 billion toward aging control towers, $10 billion toward telecommunications and other ATC technology, and $10 billion toward airport improvements.
Bedford then provided another figure just a day later, on Wednesday at the Regional Airline Association’s Leaders Conference. He said the FAA now expects to need about $27 billion in additional funding to complete the air traffic management modernization program, down from an earlier estimate of roughly $30 billion.
To be clear, the figures cover different scopes, so they do not describe the same package. Duffy’s $30 billion proposal includes airport improvements and towers outside the systems work Bedford discussed.
Bedford nonetheless argued that continued delays and capacity constraints without modernization efforts also carry significant costs. By his estimates, flight delays and cancellations could cost another $300 billion over 20 years without modernization and that capacity limitations could cost the broader economy more than $1 trillion during the same period.
“It’s an investment we can’t afford to not make,” Bedford said at the conference. “This is a moment in time we cannot squander. I hope we get bipartisan support.”
These investments have largely been met with Congressional support, though that does not remove questions about how the FAA is spending the money it has already received. Sen. Jerry Moran, chairman of the Senate Commerce aviation subcommittee, told the RAA conference Wednesday that he wants FAA and DOT officials to explain the use of the first $12.5 billion before lawmakers make another appropriation decision.
That review will put additional pressure on the FAA to show that its accelerated schedule can produce measurable results without allowing costs and individual projects to outrun the larger plan.
Moving Fast Requires A Plan
The FAA has spent years facing criticism for the slow pace of ATC modernization, and the current initiative responds by pulling many replacement programs forward, and does that at a rapid pace. The FAA plans to complete Phase 1 by December 2028, including some modernization work that previous schedules placed years later.
GAO supports the need to replace aging equipment, but its September report raised concerns about how the agency is managing the accelerated work. The FAA has not completed a comprehensive lifecycle cost estimate for the program, and its current numbers exclude government costs, most Phase 1 operating costs and all Phase 2 costs. The agency also maintains 11,389 individual Phase 1 project schedules instead of one detailed integrated master schedule.
That scheduling issue has practical consequences. GAO found that the FAA sometimes schedules different modernization projects at the same sites without coordinating them through a single master plan. Contractors installing telecommunications, radios, surveillance equipment and controller systems may need access to the same facilities, and controllers still have to manage traffic while that work takes place.
“While accelerating this modernization is critical, FAA’s lack of a reliable lifecycle cost estimate and an integrated master schedule introduce heightened risk,” GAO wrote.
DOT partially agreed with GAO’s recommendations to develop a reliable lifecycle cost estimate and integrated Phase 1 schedule, and both recommendations remain open.
The Philadelphia outage adds urgency to the schedule because the equipment the FAA plans to replace remains in daily service. At the same time, the rising estimates and thousands of overlapping projects give Congress and GAO reason to watch how the agency manages that acceleration.
Where SMART Fits
SMART will continue attracting attention because it puts AI into a part of aviation that affects nearly every flight. Its job is fairly specific, which simplifies its integration somewhat. The system analyzes data and recommends ways to manage traffic before congestion develops, while controllers and traffic managers retain operational authority.
That approach gives the FAA a chance to evaluate the software against practical measures. The agency can track whether SMART helps traffic managers identify weather problems earlier, preserve more usable airspace, reduce unnecessary ground stops and give operators more predictable departure and routing information.
The rest of the modernization program faces equally practical tests. Controllers need reliable radios and telecommunications links, backup connections need to remain available when primary systems fail, surveillance data must reach the people and software that use it, and contractors have to install thousands of pieces of new equipment without disrupting daily operations.
What Does GA Get From Modernization?
General aviation pilots have a direct stake in the outcome. Airline delays dominate most of the public discussion, but GA uses the same National Airspace System and depends on the same controllers, communications infrastructure, surveillance systems and weather information.
Better traffic management could help around congested terminal airspace, while more reliable communications should matter everywhere from a Class B arrival to an IFR approach into a small airport. The FAA has already replaced a substantial amount of aging equipment, and SMART adds another layer of capability as the agency builds the next version of the NAS.
The work now carries higher cost estimates, additional tariff expenses, new congressional funding requests and a schedule that compresses thousands of projects into the next few years. Monday’s telecom failure showed why the FAA wants to move quickly, while the latest GAO report shows why cost and scheduling discipline will matter just as much.
For GA, that leaves a practical question. After tens of billions of dollars in new technology, will pilots actually see a system that is more reliable, more accessible and less vulnerable to the kinds of failures that can shut down service across a region? Or will most of the visible gains show up in airline traffic flow while smaller airports and GA pilots continue relying on infrastructure that modernization reaches later?
That is a measure worth watching as the FAA moves from announcements and appropriations into the next several years of installations.
