The Department of Transportation and the FAA have selected Peraton, a security and technology company owned by New York-based private equity firm Veritas Capital, to manage construction of a modernized U.S. air traffic control (ATC) system.
The project received $12.5 billion in funding from Congress this year. The DOT estimates the total cost will be $32 billion. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has pledged to complete the overhaul in three years.
As the project's prime integrator, Peraton will be charged with ensuring the modernization project is undertaken in a coordinated and effective fashion and with supporting the FAA as new technologies are deployed.
"This is a long-term investment in the future of air travel, and we're committed to getting it right," FAA administrator Bryan Bedford said.
The modernization program includes replacing telecommunications networks, radar, software and hardware. Specific plans call for 5,170 high-speed network connections on fiber, satellite and wireless; 27,625 radios; 462 digital voice switches; and 612 modern radars.
ATC modernization took center stage after the Jan. 29 collision of an American Eagle regional jet with an Army helicopter near Reagan National Airport in Washington, which killed all 67 people on the two aircraft.
Beginning in 2007, the FAA implemented an air traffic modernization program called NextGen that had cost close to $20 billion, according to a 2024 report by the Office of the Inspector General for the DOT. NextGen had been widely critiqued as slow-moving and ineffectual. A September 2024 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office detailed 58 unsustainable or potentially unsustainable FAA systems that have "critical operational impacts on the safety and efficiency of the national airspace."
Of the $12.5 billion in funding that Congress appropriated to a new system overhaul this year, the largest components are $4.75 billion for ATC telecommunications infrastructure and $3 billion for radar systems replacement. Another $1.9 billion is to go toward constructing a new air route traffic control center to handle midflight air traffic, above 20,000 feet.
The FAA said Peraton will begin working immediately, partnering with the agency on initial priorities, which include transitioning the system's remaining copper infrastructure to modern fiber and establishing a new digital command center.