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FAA Could Get $4B for ATC Upgrades in 2027 Budget
White House request calls for a $481 million increase to the agency’s operations account.
The White House’s fiscal year 2027 (FY27) budget request calls for $4 billion to fund the FAA’s three-year, brand new air traffic control system (BNATCS) effort, adding to $12.5 billion allocated by Congress last year.
President Donald Trump requested $26.6 billion for the Transportation Department (DOT) overall, a $1.6 billion or 6.3 percent increase over 2026 funding levels. Of that, $4 billion would be set aside for air traffic control (ATC) “facilities and equipment” upgrades.
Among other goals, BNATCS aims to install 27,625 new radios, 462 digital voice switches, and 110 weather stations in Alaska by 2028. Some are already in place. The money will also fund new facilities, including the first new consolidated air route traffic control center (ARTCC) since the 1960s.
The budget further requests a $481 million increase to the FAA’s FY27 operations account. That would support upgrades to aviation and commercial spaceflight safety as well as the FAA’s “outdated” telecommunications system.
The agency in December said it had swapped one-third of the copper wiring carrying the nation’s ATC data and communications for fiber optic cables. A faulty copper wire was cited as the cause of 2025 blackouts at the facility that oversees Newark Liberty International Airport (KEWR).
In January, the FAA contracted RTX and Indra to replace up to 612 ground-based aviation radars—many of them decades old.
The $481 million would also support the Trump administration’s ATC “hiring surge.” The FAA aims to hire at least 8,900 new ATCs through 2028 after hitting its goal of more than 2,000 for FY25. It achieved that by streamlining the hiring process, awarding cash bonuses, and adding new schools to air traffic collegiate training initiative (AT-CTI) and Enhanced AT-CTI programs.
However, those improvements would come at a cost to the Essential Air Service (EAS) program, which subsidizes commercial aviation services for more than 150 small and remote communities. The budget calls to slash EAS funding by $372 million.
“The EAS program funnels taxpayer dollars to airlines to subsidize half-empty flights from airports that are within easy commuting distance from each other, while also failing to effectively provide assistance to most rural air travelers,” the budget request reads. “Spending on this program is out of control, more than doubling between 2021 and 2025.”
In FY21, the EAS awarded about $345 million in multiyear contracts. The Senate in early 2025 allocated it $450 million, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in October secured an additional $111 million to keep it funded through last year’s government shutdown.
The program was allotted $513.6 million in discretionary funding this year.
“Certain nonhub airports that do not receive subsidized air service through EAS have faced challenges securing and maintaining air service,” according to a December Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. “For example, some of these airports reported an increased need to pay airlines for service, as airlines have shifted to using larger planes and scaled back service to some smaller communities to reduce their operating costs.”
Will It Be Enough?
Congress in February approved a consolidated appropriations measure that gave the FAA $22.2 billion, a $1.2 billion increase to previous funding levels that is expected to last through September.
Like the president’s FY27 budget request, the spending bill allocated $4 billion toward facility and equipment upgrades. About $280 million went to the FAA’s Contract Tower Program, enough to fund its 266 towers and expand it to other airports. Another $6 million will support conversions of busy contract towers to FAA-staffed facilities.
About $13.7 billion is reserved for FAA operations, which per Congress will allow it to hire 2,500 new ATCs and 54 aviation safety inspectors. There is $40 million set aside for aviation workforce development programs.
Solving the nation’s chronic ATC shortage of more than 3,000 controllers has been a key priority for the administration. Additional funding would help. But given the extensive training controllers must complete before getting on the job, the benefits could take years to materialize.
Though the FAA has taken measures to address the problem, the Homeland Security Department shutdown has stalled bills that seek to raise ATC salaries and pay them during shutdowns. The former would allocate $140 million for a 3.8 percent salary bump.
ATCs went weeks without paychecks during the last government shutdown in 2025. Many called out sick or took on second jobs, such as driving for Uber or DoorDash, as they struggled to afford food, gas, day care, and even lifesaving medicine.
“I’ve looked at the FAA budget to see if we could find resources to pay our controllers, and it becomes really challenging in a shutdown to make that happen,” DOT Secretary Sean Duffy said in October.
The FAA’s other main priority under Trump has been upgrading the equipment ATCs rely on.
Duffy has described the $12.5 billion in BNATCS funding from Congress as a “down payment” and repeatedly requested an additional $20 billion. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in December that the initial funding would help, but U.S. airspace “would still be antiquated.”
Per Bedford, the FAA committed about half of the $12.5 billion in 2025. Beyond replacing copper wiring, it has supported the deployment of 148 radios, 43 surface awareness systems, and 13 electronic flight strips at towers nationwide, as of December. Indra has a $244.3 million contract to develop up to 46,000 new radios, helping shift ATC communications from analog to digital.
But according to Duffy, the $12.5 billion does not cover a common automation platform (CAP) that will orchestrate all of this new technology. The CAP would combine the functions of the FAA’s En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) and Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS) platforms, allowing data to be exchanged across 350 FAA facilities.
The FAA requested proposals for a CAP in November and closed responses in December. RTX is reportedly among the companies vying for the job.
Combined with the $12.5 billion from Congress, Friday’s budget request would give the FAA at least $16.5 billion to carry out the modernization effort. Duffy could have an uphill battle securing the rest of the money.
Representative Troy Nehls (R-Texas), chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Aviation Subcommittee, questioned the ambitiousness of the three-year plan during a Honeywell event in Washington, D.C., in November. Nehls worried BNATCS could go the way of the FAA’s NextGen effort, which per a government watchdog took $36 billion of taxpayer money while delivering just 16 percent of its promised benefits.
“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.
https://www.flyingmag.com/faa-4b-atc-upgrades-2027-budget/
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