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The government chose a company with little experience working with the Federal Aviation Administration, Peraton, to oversee a nearly $31.5 billion overhaul of the aging air traffic control system.
Transport Secretary Sean Duffy said Thursday evening that Peraton was chosen in the hope that its innovative approach would make it possible to complete the upgrade within the next three years before the end of the president’s term. donald trumpThe term of office has expired. Peraton was selected over Parsons Corp., which has extensive experience FAA Contract.
“Working together, we are going to build on the incredible progress already made and deliver a state-of-the-art air traffic control system that American “The traveling public – and our hard-working air traffic controllers – are eligible,” Duffy said in the announcement.
Here’s what you need to know about the modernization project and the company appointed to oversee it:
$12.5 billion down payment on the project
earlier this year, Congress $12.5 billion was approved as a down payment on the project after technical problems twice appeared on the radar of air traffic controllers managing planes around Newark Liberty International Airport. The year began with the worst US aviation disaster in years when a plane collided with a military helicopter over Washington, DC, killing 67 people.
Duffy has said it will need about $20 billion more to complete the upgrade.
This effort to advance the use of technology controllers is on a much more aggressive timeline than the previous NextGen effort, which began shortly after the turn of the century and failed to deliver all of its promised benefits despite a $36 billion investment. The Biden administration had estimated that upgrading the system could take more than a decade.
The FAA has not yet released details of how much Peraton will be paid for this contract, but the agency said it will include incentives to reward good performance and penalties for deficiencies.
Upgrades needed to avoid delays and prepare for drones and flying taxis
Technical problems that disrupted flights at Newark Airport in the spring demonstrated how fragile the nation’s aging air traffic control system is. And Duffy has said that such technical failures in systems often dependent on copper wires and floppy disks can occur anywhere unless the system is upgraded.
Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed at Newark. After the radar outage, the facility in Philadelphia that controls flights in and out of Newark put a half-dozen controllers on leave, forcing it to cut flights.
The number of flights each day across the country that the FAA must safely manage is expected to increase in the coming years. And as flying taxis take to the air, drones will continue to proliferate across the country.
Everyone agrees that the air traffic control system must be modernized to be able to meet future demands.
Ambitious timeline for upgrade
John Rose, chief risk advisor at global travel management company ALTOUR, said the three-year timeline is “extremely aggressive” but partly realistic. He said it would be possible for the FAA to build the foundation of a modern air traffic control network in a short period of time, with more advanced capabilities added later.
“You need to build a base before you can access all the facilities,” he said. “If the project reaches the main structure in three years, I feel we have accomplished the mission.”
He compared it to the iPhone, where once you have a solid base system you can upgrade the software such as when the phone gets an iOS update. “If they build the infrastructure, as things change with the technology capacity, it’s almost like plug and play,” he said.
President of the Air Traffic Control Association and ceo Stephen Creamer represents the companies that make the gear that Peraton and the FAA will use to complete the upgrade. He said it helps that the new system won’t have to be built from scratch.
“The technology that’s required in the system is not cutting-edge technology. It’s been tried and tested in various locations around the world. We know what its capabilities are. We know what the risks are in those installations that we wouldn’t know if we were trying to do it and were the first ones out of the gate,” Creamer said.
Why is this contract needed?
Duffy said putting a private company in charge would help the project be completed more quickly, and would be helped by Peraton’s expertise with complex technical systems and artificial intelligence.
Peraton has stated that the fact that it has no history of work at the FAA could actually help as it would not be biased towards working with the same companies that have failed in the past.
And after all the cuts and early retirements Trump has made to the federal workforce this year. Creamer said the FAA needs help to complete the project because it no longer has the staff to do it.
The hope is that Peraton will be able to award contracts to other companies more quickly than the FAA because it will not be limited by the same process. This presents the possibility that mistakes could be made, but Creamer said, “I think there are a lot of checks and balances in the administrative system to make sure there isn’t substantial waste or fraud or abuse.”
Peraton has worked on other government technology upgrades
Peraton has worked on billion-dollar technology contracts for the military and other agencies, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Special Operations Command, and the National Park Service.
The company is owned by private equity firm Veritas Capital, so it has no shareholders. Its advisory board is filled with former military and intelligence officers. A spokesperson for Peraton said the company was too busy starting the contract to do any interviews Friday, but its CEO Steve Shorr promised in a statement that his team is committed to completing the project.
“Our highly skilled, dedicated and talented team of engineers, technologists and mission specialists is ready to deliver a system that Americans can trust – one that is safer, more reliable and a model for the world to follow,” Schorer said.
According to www.opensecrets.org, the company’s political action committee donated a quarter of a million dollars to politicians last year, more than half of which went to Republicans.
Reforms are already underway
Duffy said the FAA is already working on improvements and that more than a third of the old copper wires that air traffic controllers rely on have been replaced with fiber optic lines or other modern connections.
But some progress, such as installing new systems to help controllers track planes on the ground at 44 airports, began during the previous administration.
And significant work remains to install more than 27,600 new radios and 612 new radar systems. Older connections still need to be upgraded to thousands of additional facilities, and six new air traffic control centers are planned to be built.
