FAA administrator Bryan Bedford said Wednesday that the Department of Transportation (DOT) is close to picking a prime integrator—essentially a general contractor—to lead the agency’s Brand New Air Traffic Control System (BNATCS) effort.
Unlike previous efforts such as NextGen, The BNATCS plan—which aims to modernize the country’s ATC systems with infrastructure upgrades and new facilities—will rely on a private company to oversee both technical and managerial responsibilities. Bedford said the hope is for the integrator to “get on board and take our plan and make it even better.”
Speaking at Honeywell’s American Aviation Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the integrator selection process is in its “final stages,” with an announcement “weeks away.”
Duffy said he would like President Donald Trump to be “involved in that selection” and that Trump will “give us his feedback on who he thinks would be best to select.”
“Our plans will only be enhanced by the integrator selection, so we’re ready to brief the president on that, get his opinions,” Bedford said. “This is, of course, his signature program. He’s very invested in the airspace, loves what we do, wants it to work better for the American people.”
Why Do We Need a Brand New ATC System?
A plethora of FAA ATC systems—by some estimates the vast majority—are outdated. Earlier this year, for example, radar and communications outages at Newark Liberty International Airport (KEWR) were blamed on faulty copper communications wiring.
Duffy announced the BNATCS effort a few months after the fatal January collision between a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and commercial passenger jet over the Potomac River, killing 67 people. A National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) analysis later found that between October 2021 and December 2024, there were 85 close calls near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (KDCA) where aircraft had lateral separation less than 1,500 feet and vertical separation less than 200 feet.
During a three-day hearing in August, witnesses said concerns about KDCA’s airspace existed long before the January collision. The FAA has since restricted helicopter flights at the airport and required all aircraft traveling through its Class B airspace to broadcast ADS-B Out. The agency is using artificial intelligence to identify risks at other airports.
The BNATCS is billed as a remedy to at least some of these safety concerns. The multibillion-dollar effort will replace copper with fiber-optic wiring, transition ATC communications from analog to digital, and build new towers, centers, and terminal radar approach control (TRACON) facilities.
What Will the Integrator Do?
Duffy on Wednesday said it is “critical” that an outside entity—not the FAA—leads the modernization effort.
“The FAA does a great job on safety,” he said. “But they’re not builders.”
The initiative will comprise two phases. The first will focus on addressing safety vulnerabilities by replacing outdated equipment and infrastructure. The second aims to evolve the system for future spikes in travel volume and the introduction of new technology, such as electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Phase 2 calls to build new air route traffic control centers (ARTCCs), for example.
The BNATCS integrator will serve as a systems architect and general contractor, “responsible for ensuring all components work, all the time, to a high standard,” per a request for services (RFS) published by the FAA in August. It will be responsible for acquiring and installing new systems, as well as overall safety and risk management.
The company will need to complete its tasks within 3.5 years, working with both FAA personnel and industry subcontractors. Its contract will cover only Phase 1, but the FAA “reserves the right, at its option and in its absolute discretion” to assign Phase 2 task orders.
“This is a deliberate effort to avoid instances where fragmented contracts lead to delays, avoidance of critical issues, finger-pointing, and lack of ownership,” the RFS reads.
So far, two integrator candidates have emerged.
Peraton, which specializes in national security, said it would bring a “holistic approach” to the project as a “pure-play systems integrator.” The company invests in technologies such as artificial intelligence through Peraton Labs (formerly Bell Labs) and has handled communications, telemetry, tracking, and other aspects of space missions for defense, homeland security, and NASA. It operates dozens of ground stations and said its systems are “TRACON-ready.”
Competing with Peraton is a partnership between Parsons Corporation and IBM, which has been a government contractor for nearly its entire existence. Parsons said it has designed, built, and managed infrastructure for over 450 airports in 40 countries. Under its FAA Technical Support Services contract, the company has installed and tested systems and equipment at more than 600 locations, it said.
“It’s in everybody’s interest to move forward with that integrator and get a new system in place to maintain safety, and to be able to grow,” said Sharon Pinkerton, senior vice president of legislative and regulatory policy for Airlines for America (A4A).
What’s Next?
The selection of an integrator is expected to accelerate the BNATCS effort. But progress is already underway.
Pinkerton, for instance, estimated that about 100 sites are switching from copper to fiber optic wiring each month. Duffy said the FAA also has funding for new radar, radios, voice switches, and a “brand-new center.”
The agency in September launched a vendor challenge to modernize its Traffic Flow Management System (TFMS). Per Pinkerton, it has also issued RFSs for radar and voice switches. The integrator, she said, will “make a big difference” in the deployment of those technologies.
Bob Buddecke, president of electronic solutions for Honeywell Aerospace, said there has also been “significant progress” on equipping aircraft with controller-pilot datalink communications, “which sounds so technical,” he said, “but really it’s just moving more and more voice communication to digital messaging.”
Duffy predicted the switch from analog to digital communications will be a larger undertaking than the replacement of copper wiring. Working in the FAA’s favor, though, is a modification to the agency’s acquisition policy that is expected to streamline procurement of new systems.
“They have identified the fact that they’ve had acquisition reform authorities that they have not used,” said Pinkerton. “And they have said, point-blank, they’re going to start using them. So these procurements that have taken years and years and years, I think they’re going to start to cut through the red tape and move forward more quickly.”
Still, there remain plenty of questions—not least of which is how the effort will be funded.
Congress so far has allocated $12.5 billion toward the BNATCS. But that does not cover key technologies, such as a common automation platform envisioned to consolidate existing systems like the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS). Duffy is seeking a total of $31.5 billion and on Wednesday urged lawmakers to give the FAA the “rest of the money.”
Representative Troy Nehls (R-Texas), who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Aviation Subcommittee, implied the extra funding may never come. Nehls expressed skepticism about the BNATCS plan given the FAA’s failures with the NextGen initiative, which the DOT Office of the Inspector General concluded achieved only 16 percent of its promised benefits. About $36 billion was poured into the decades-long project.
“I am not just going to throw another $20 billion in their direction if we can’t hold them accountable for the $12.5 [billion],” Nehls said.
The Texas congressman said he is also concerned about the BNATCS’ three-year timeframe.
“Everybody says we want to get it done in three years,” he said. “That’s a little ambitious, a very lofty goal, three years. I don’t know how you’re going to do it.”
However, Nehls said that Congress has a “responsibility” to help the FAA fix the ATC system—and quickly.
“We are this close to having something catastrophic take place in our country, and we have a responsibility to everybody in this room, the American people everywhere, to get this done right—and we have to put the foot on the gas,” he said.
