The BNATCS State of Play

The Trump Administration has made the overhaul of the current air traffic control system a top priority for the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). Last summer, through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB),¹ the administration secured a $12.5 billion "down payment" from the U.S. Congress to modernize the system. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has reported significant progress on this project, now known as the Brand-New Air Traffic Control System (BNATCS) effort, and recently provided a status update to stakeholders at DOT headquarters. Despite this initial progress, DOT and FAA leadership continue to lobby Congress to appropriate an additional $20 billion to complete the project. On April 21, 2026, the DOT provided a status update on the project.

This Holland & Knight blog outlines the DOT's BNATCS project progress to date and summarizes the April 21 briefing in that broader context, providing a comprehensive status report of what we know now.

Progress to Date

May Announcement

On May 8, 2025, DOT Secretary Sean Duffy announced the department's plan to build a "brand new, state-of-the-art air traffic control system." The plan seeks to revamp four infrastructure components: 1) Communications, 2) Surveillance, 3) Automation and 4) Facilities.

Within these four workstreams, the FAA detailed quantitative deliverables for the project, including:

• 5,170 new high-speed network connections on fiber, satellite and wireless
• 27,625 new radios
• 462 new digital voice switches
• 612 state-of-the-art radars
• 44 airports will have new replacement surface radars
• 200 airports will have Surface Awareness Initiative surveillance technology
• 89 airports will have new Terminal Flight Data Manager tools
• 435 air traffic control towers will have new Enterprise Information Display Systems
• 113 air traffic control towers will have new Tower Simulation Systems

Funding Appropriated

On July 4, 2025, President Donald Trump signed the OBBB into law. It provided $12.5 billion in several specific categories for air traffic control (ATC) modernization, including $4.75 billion for telecommunications infrastructure upgrades, $3 billion to replace radar systems and $1.9 billion to construct new air route traffic control centers (ARTCCs). The OBBB also called for spending $100 million to conduct further ARTCC realignment and consolidation, $1 billion to support recapitalization and consolidation of terminal radar approach control facilities (TRACONs), and several million dollars to address air traffic controller training, air traffic control tower upgrades, remote towers and research.

"Integrator" Selected

In the early phases of the project, DOT and FAA emphasized the need for a "prime integrator" to oversee the BNATCS redesign. After initial delays, on December 4, 2025, the FAA announced it had selected Peraton, a Virginia-based defense contractor, as the prime integrator to assist in achieving the administration's ATC modernization goals.

FAA Administrator Appears Before Congress

In mid-December 2025, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation's Subcommittee on Aviation, Space, and Innovation and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure's Subcommittee on Aviation. This marked Administrator Bedford's first appearance before Congress since the launch of the BNATCS initiative. Among other topics, the administrator was questioned by lawmakers on the status of the project. He shared the following with Congress:

• The FAA had converted 35 percent of its copper wire to fiber and was on track to complete this transformation by the third quarter of 2027.
• The government selected Peraton as the prime integrator based on its experience moving compute power into the cloud for NASA and the U.S. Department of War.
• Peraton's profit agreement is incentive-based, emphasizing the dual importance of effectiveness and efficiency. The deal is broken into three elements: fixed profit of 3 percent and variable profitability at 6 percent, contingent on completing the plan on budget and on time, with the condition that the FAA will hold back 3 percent for any damages.
• The $12.5 billion was for the first three phases of the project; an additional $20 billion would be necessary to upgrade facilities and for a compute layer.
• The next phase of the modernization effort will move National Airspace System (NAS) compute power from 350 siloed facilities into a single, cloud-based system enabling strategic deconfliction and enhanced resiliency and moving away from a system of manual handoffs.

Radar Contracts Announced

On January 8, 2026, the FAA announced RTX and Indra had been awarded contracts for the ground-based radar replacement portion of the project. The contracts were awarded to replace up to 612 radars by June 2028 with modern, commercially available surveillance radars.

DOT April Briefing

On April 21, 2026, at DOT headquarters, Secretary Duffy and Administrator Bedford provided an update on the status of the BNATCS project – which the administration plans to complete by the end of 2028 – framing the effort as the largest aviation infrastructure overhaul since the Jet Age. At the briefing, both Secretary Duffy and Administrator Bedford emphasized that much of the NAS still relies on outdated technology, including copper wiring, analog radios and paper flight strips.

In addition to Secretary Duffy and Administrator Bedford, featured speakers included:

• FAA Chief Technology Officer Rebecca Guy
• Peraton President Justin Ciaccio
• Airlines for America President and CEO Chris Sununu
• National Air Traffic Controllers Association President Nick Daniels

Progress Update

With the $12.5 billion already appropriated, the FAA is rapidly replacing legacy infrastructure. Speakers highlighted substantial early progress:

• Telecommunications. Nearly 50 percent of legacy copper wiring converted to high‑speed fiber, with more than 2,400 of approximately 5,100 connections underway
• Communications. Approximately 270 radio sites converted, over 250 fully completed and more than 40 new voice switches installed, eliminating static and improving controller‑pilot clarity
• Surface Surveillance. New systems deployed at 54 airports, improving ground movement visibility during low‑visibility conditions
• Digital Flight Data. 17 towers transitioned to electronic flight strips, marking a clear departure from paper‑based processes

The program's scope includes approximately 10 million labor hours, dozens of labor categories and work at 4,600 sites nationwide. DOT emphasized that roughly 50 vendors are currently involved across manufacturing, installation and integration, framing BNATCS as both a safety initiative and domestic infrastructure investment. DOT and FAA leadership highlighted that U.S. radar manufacturing will resume domestically, with radars built by American workers for the U.S. NAS.

Next Phase: Software

A software overhaul is the critical next phase of the modernization project, with Secretary Duffy stressing that infrastructure and software must be deployed concurrently. The secretary repeatedly urged Congress to provide additional funding to prevent a mismatch between modern infrastructure and outdated software that plagued the NextGen program.

Software and Airspace Redesign

Administrator Bedford noted that BNATCS is only one component of a broader modernization strategy built around three pillars: infrastructure, people and airspace design. Current funding focuses heavily on replacing legacy physical systems, and Bedford emphasized that the NAS is still operated using mid‑20th‑century airspace architecture, even as aircraft performance, fleet mix and demand have changed dramatically.

To address this, FAA leadership described a shift toward software‑enabled, systemwide optimization that moves conflict resolution upstream. Central to this vision is the development of digital twins of the NAS, built using more than 20 years of historical and operational data. These models will allow the FAA to ingest future schedules, analyze demand at scale and proactively deconflict flight trajectories before aircraft ever depart the gate. Under this approach, as many as 55,000 daily instrument flight rules flights could be strategically sequenced and optimized in advance, reducing downstream congestion, controller workload, fuel burn and delay propagation across the network. Administrator Bedford noted that earlier efforts at trajectory‑based operations struggled because of technological constraints but argued that current advances in data integration, computing power and artificial intelligence (AI) make this approach viable today.

Both Administrator Bedford and Secretary Duffy characterized advanced software as the highest‑return element of modernization, with the greatest potential to improve safety, efficiency and on‑time performance across the NAS. Throughout the briefing, the pair repeatedly called on Congress to fund this next phase on timelines that align with the ongoing infrastructure build, arguing that failure to do so would risk repeating the incremental and delayed outcomes that defined prior modernization efforts.

Audience Q&A

The briefing concluded with a Q&A in which Secretary Duffy and Administrator Bedford fielded questions on topics ranging from the integration of emerging technologies such as drones and electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft to the role of AI, program governance and ongoing safety incidents. Leadership emphasized that new entrants will significantly increase demand on an already constrained airspace, reinforcing the need for advanced, predictive software while reiterating that additional congressional funding is required to align software deployment with ongoing infrastructure upgrades. Both agency heads underscored that the project's execution model is designed to modernize the NAS without disrupting live operations while providing air traffic controllers with better tools to safely manage scale and complexity.

Next Steps

DOT and FAA are committed to completing the system overhaul by the end of 2028.

To accomplish this, the FAA and Peraton must successfully implement phase one of the BNATCS project, using the already-appropriated $12.5 billion. While phase one implementation is underway, DOT is asking for an additional $20 billion from Congress to completely overhaul the system and address the software phase.

Congress has generally proven supportive of BNATCS, though many legislators have stated that they wish to see proof of substantial progress on the first $12.5 billion before providing additional appropriations. Secretary Duffy has pointed to additional budget reconciliation efforts as the department's preferred path forward. The presidential budget request seems to support this strategy as it does not include a request for additional BNATCS money through the standard appropriations process for Fiscal Year 2027.²

Notes

¹ Pub. L. 119-21 (July 4, 2025).

² Office of Management and Budget, fiscal year 2027 president's budget, April 2026.