On November 5, 2026, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced the first five sites for its plan to replace legacy air traffic control information display equipment, which has relied on floppy disks and similar media, with a new system called the Enterprise Information Display System (E-IDS). E-IDS displays the weather and aeronautical information controllers use in one place, and the FAA aims to install it at 435 sites nationwide by the end of 2028. The plan consolidates four legacy systems that have been in use since the 1980s, with the goal of making it easier to find the information controllers need and to share it across the country.
The initial sites are three airports, Atlantic City International Airport, Nashville International Airport, and Greater Rochester International Airport, along with two data processing sites in Atlanta and Salt Lake City. This means the 435-site target does not count airports alone. The overhaul goes beyond simply eliminating floppy disks: it fundamentally rethinks how information scattered across multiple systems is searched, updated, and shared. However, the FAA changed E-IDS's development approach in 2025 after delays and cost increases, and the nationwide rollout will also require coordination with other air traffic control equipment upgrades happening in parallel.
Four legacy systems merged to unify weather and aeronautical information
To help aircraft operate safely, air traffic controllers must consult many kinds of information beyond aircraft positions, including approach charts, weather data, and important notices about flight operations. According to an audit report published by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on September 14, 2026, the existing information display equipment still relies on technology and interfaces dating back to the 1980s, which made organizing and displaying information difficult. Some data updates required manual work, and controllers had to go through cumbersome steps to search for and display the information they needed. Improving the usability and maintainability of this aging equipment is the main purpose of introducing E-IDS.
E-IDS consolidates information needed for air traffic control into a single display system, including equipment malfunctions and outages, air traffic conditions, and weather effects. By letting controllers check important notices and changing conditions on the same system, it aims to give them faster access to the information they need. The FAA hopes this more efficient information management will reduce the costs of repairing old equipment and operating with workarounds, while also improving air traffic safety.
According to the FAA's technical description, the information collection and distribution improvements cover Pilot Weather Reports (PIREPs), in which pilots relay weather conditions observed in flight to controllers, as well as aeronautical information that tells pilots what they need to know for a flight. The FAA treats sharing this information properly as a key safety issue in air traffic services. E-IDS is also planned to share critical flight warnings and restricted airspace schedules on a national scale. The aim is not only to make it easier for controllers to check what they need, but also to deliver important information to the relevant facilities on time.
The update integrates four existing systems, IDS-4, ACE-IDS, NIDS, and ERIDS, into E-IDS. ACE-IDS displays ground-observed weather information to controllers, and the plan does not call for replacing weather observation instruments themselves all at once. E-IDS standardizes how regionally and nationally used information is managed and is also designed to connect with the FAA's information-sharing platform, System Wide Information Management (SWIM). The plan also includes creating an environment where maintenance staff can work together more easily and introducing new features and system updates more efficiently.
That said, the equipment and functions to be updated differ between E-IDS, which handles information display and sharing, and systems for communication with aircraft, position monitoring, and air traffic optimization. The relationship to the FAA's broader air traffic control modernization program, the Brand New Air Traffic Control System (BNATCS), can be summarized as follows.
| Update target | Main content and relationship to this plan |
|---|---|
| Display and sharing of weather and aeronautical information | Handled by E-IDS. Aims for installation at 435 sites by the end of 2028 |
| Updates to communication, surveillance, and other equipment | Included in BNATCS Phase 1, which also covers weather-related equipment and training |
| New automation systems for aircraft tracking, traffic optimization, etc. | Positioned in BNATCS Phase 2. As of the GAO audit, neither start nor completion dates had been set |
The end-of-2028 deadline for E-IDS therefore applies to the system for displaying and sharing weather and aeronautical information. It does not mean the overhaul of the entire U.S. air traffic control system will be finished at the same time. BNATCS also includes updates to communication and surveillance equipment and the introduction of new automation systems, so progress on each plan needs to be assessed separately.
From 2020 outsourcing to 2025 in-house development
E-IDS development began before BNATCS started in 2025. According to Leidos's announcement on August 25, 2020, the company won the prime contract from the FAA to design and develop E-IDS. The contract was valued at roughly $292 million, with a four-year base period plus 11 one-year extension options. It covered not only system design and testing but also training, production, and installation at facilities.
The original plan envisioned combining physical equipment at more than 400 FAA facilities nationwide with the FAA's virtualization infrastructure to replace five legacy systems. The FAA's latest announcement describes four systems being integrated, so the description of the targeted systems differs depending on when the plan was described. These materials alone do not show exactly what scope changed between the 2020 concept and the current plan. At the very least, the 435-site rollout announced now cannot be equated directly with the 2020 contract.
E-IDS development later faced delays and cost increases. In a September 2024 review, the GAO reported that the development schedule had slipped and cost estimates had risen substantially. According to the September 2026 audit report, the FAA terminated its contract with the relevant vendor in May 2025 and shifted to developing the system internally. FAA officials explained that the change gave them more development flexibility and allowed faster implementation. However, the GAO's wording refers to the "relevant vendor," and it does not explicitly identify the specific contractor.
In other words, E-IDS moved from an external development contract in 2020, through delays and cost increases, to in-house development in May 2025. As a result, the roughly $292 million originally awarded to Leidos cannot be treated as the cost required for the E-IDS program as a whole today. The FAA's November 5 announcement set out the initial sites and the end-of-2028 rollout goal but did not disclose the total cost of the current plan. Judging whether the nationwide rollout is feasible requires checking not only the deployment schedule but also the costs that will be needed after the change in development approach.
Construction schedules and staffing will shape the 435-site rollout
Expanding E-IDS from the first five sites to 435 nationwide requires more than installation work; it depends on coordination with other equipment upgrades running in parallel at each facility. For example, if replacing information display equipment and updating communication and voice equipment are scheduled separately, work could overlap at the same facility or crews could have to visit repeatedly. Managing each equipment upgrade plan individually makes it hard to allocate limited workers and facility access time efficiently. At facilities where air traffic control operations run every day, minimizing the effect of construction on operations is especially important.
The GAO's September 2026 audit report points to problems in the overall schedule management of BNATCS. As of May 2026, the plan included 11,389 individual projects, but there was no integrated master schedule to manage them across the program. Even if each project has its own schedule, that does not adequately capture tasks that cannot begin until other work is finished, or relationships between tasks that use the same staff and equipment. The GAO said an integrated master schedule is needed that shows dependencies among projects, including work handled by government agencies and contractors.
The GAO also said that when multiple equipment updates are carried out at the same facility, work schedules should be combined to reduce duplicate visits and effects on air traffic control operations. If each project proceeds on its own, preparation and on-site oversight may have to be repeated, which could make the whole effort inefficient. E-IDS is part of this nationwide equipment modernization program, so it needs to proceed with its relationship to other equipment updates in mind, not just according to its own deployment schedule.
The GAO also flagged problems with cost management. The preliminary BNATCS cost estimate the FAA presented in June 2026 did not include government-borne costs, much of the operations and maintenance cost after deployment, or the costs required for Phase 2. Looking only at acquisition and installation costs does not show the total needed to operate and maintain a system over the long term. The GAO called for a life-cycle cost estimate covering the entire period from development through deployment, operations, and maintenance.
In response, the U.S. Department of Transportation said in its reply to the audit that finance and program staff are preparing and continually updating the Phase 1 cost estimate. On schedule management, it said it maintains detailed schedules for individual projects and is developing an AI-powered coordination tool. The department said the tool and related efforts were intended to track and coordinate each project's work status by location and month.
However, the GAO noted that maintaining schedules for individual projects is different from managing the whole program, including dependencies among projects. It also said the AI coordination tool was still in a trial phase as of May 2026, with usage rules and operating procedures not yet established. On cost estimates, the GAO judged that the total required cost and the analysis supporting it had not been shown. It therefore maintained its two recommendations calling for an integrated master schedule and a life-cycle cost estimate. These are assessments as of the September 2026 audit, and the status of subsequent responses needs to be checked separately.
The FAA's announcement of the first five sites shows that E-IDS, developed over many years, has moved into a concrete deployment phase aimed at a nationwide rollout. At the same time, completing installation at 435 sites by the end of 2028 will require more than carrying out installation work at each facility: the FAA must coordinate schedules and staffing with other air traffic control equipment updates while limiting the impact on operations. Going forward, in addition to E-IDS's own deployment record, how far schedule and cost management improve across BNATCS will be a key factor in judging whether the plan can succeed.