FAA Risks Repeating History Of Cost Overruns, Delays And Unmet Performance Targets
The FAA needs more funding from Congress to complete phase one of a $10.6 billion air traffic control reform plan and has underestimated the total costs of operating the new system, according to a government report released on Monday.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said the FAA had not fully assessed the costs of operating the new system or set a detailed schedule for completing reforms.
“In essence, the FAA is buying delivery speed at the risk of cost uncertainty and potential disruptions,” the GAO report said, adding, “these risks increase the likelihood of FAA repeating its history of cost overruns, delays, and unmet performance targets.”
Congress previously approved $9 billion for ATC reforms in the first phase. The FAA is also using $1 billion from its current-year budget and needs another $574 million, the GAO said. The price tag for telecommunications upgrades has jumped from $4.75 billion to $5.91 billion, GAO said.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford is set to testify on Tuesday before Congress on the effort and its plan to begin deploying a software-based program to try to avoid flight delays.
The GAO report said, “FAA has 11,389 individual project schedules that are not integrated. As a result, individual projects are scheduled for installations at the same sites, generally without optimizing the schedules to reduce impacts to controller operations. Officials stated they have plans to address this issue, however; they did not have a time frame for when the issue would be resolved.”
The FAA’s existing air traffic control systems are “severely outdated, underperforming, and unsustainable. This aging and unreliable technology has contributed to an increase in aviation incidents,” GAO said.
Replacing air traffic control tower voice switches carries the highest risk because of the size of the sites and airspace it controls, the age of technology and need to operate new and old voice switches simultaneously.
The GAO noted that the FAA released its first comprehensive plan for improving air traffic control services in 1982 and has since suffered a series of cost overruns and delays while delivering limited results.
GAO is recommending that FAA prioritize (1) developing a reliable lifecycle cost estimate for the Brand New Air Traffic Control System (BNATCS) and (2) developing a detailed integrated master schedule for BNATCS phase 1. Transportation partially concurred with both recommendations. GAO believes both recommendations are sound and should be fully addressed.
GAO photo credit FAA Modern Skies Summit handout.
FMI: www.gao.gov
