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GAO: large share of FAA air-traffic systems unsustainable; lawmakers press for emergency funding and procurement fixes
Summary
At a House Aviation subcommittee hearing, GAO and industry witnesses said many federal air-traffic control systems have exceeded their service lives, slowing modernization. Witnesses and members pressed for clearer FAA plans, faster procurement and roughly $6 billion a year for facilities and equipment to accelerate replacement of legacy systems.
WASHINGTON — Government Accountability Office testimony and industry witnesses at a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee hearing said the nation’s air-traffic control technology is aging and, in some cases, unsustainable, and urged Congress and the FAA to expedite replacement and overhaul work.
A GAO witness said the agency’s 2023 operational risk assessment and GAO analysis found many systems either unsustainable or potentially unsustainable, and that FAA acquisitions for modernization have been slow: some investments took years to establish cost, schedule and performance baselines and then many more years to complete. "FAA plans to take, on average, almost 13 years" for several investments the GAO examined, the witness said.
Why it matters: witnesses warned that aging systems — from notams to surveillance and telecommunications backbones —…
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