Peraton wins air traffic control system overhaul contract
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Gettyimages.com / Hisham Ibrahim
By
Ross Wilkers
The Transportation Department is pushing hard for the new system to go online in 2028, with a price tag for modernization that could reach $31.5 billion.
Peraton has won the massive contract to lead a multibillion-dollar overhaul of the U.S.’ aging air traffic control system, a priority for the Trump administration following widespread tech outages at several airports this year.
As the prime integrator, Peraton will oversee a group of subcontractors that will replace core infrastructure to include telecommunication networks and radar systems. The Transportation Department said Thursday that it is still eyeing 2028 for implementation of the new system.
The Federal Aviation Administration received two bids for the Brand New Air Traffic Control System contract in September, one from Peraton and the other from Parsons Corp. that enlisted IBM as a key teammate.
Phase one of the contract focuses on acquiring new equipment and conducting technology refreshes, which are intended to create a backbone for the overall modernization effort. Automation will be a heavy point of emphasis throughout.
The contract’s second phase will be much more complicated as it will require the modernization, integration and transformation of the services, systems and platforms that enable operations across the entire National Airspace System.
An FAA fact sheet on the project indicates the agency is pushing to have 44 airports outfitted with new replacement surface radars, 200 airports with surface awareness initiative surveillance technology, 89 airports with new terminal fight data manager tools and the first new consolidated air route traffic control center since the 1960s.
Peraton’s responsibilities for the project include the technical elements of systems integration, as well as the managerial aspects of leading subcontractors and risk reduction.
Congress has provided the FAA $12.5 billion as an initial down payment to carry out the project, but Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told lawmakers in July the current cost estimate of the overhaul stood at $31.5 billion at that time.
In its contract award announcement, Transportation said it structured the contract as one that will “penalize unnecessary delays or poor performance.”