Air Traffic Control Finally Ejects the Floppy Disk

More than 400 US aviation facilities are still using computer systems dating from the 1980s, including machines that require floppy disks. The country that put people on the Moon has therefore spent part of 2026 preparing to remove technology more commonly found beside a beige monitor and a dial-up modem.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees aviation safety in the United States, announced on Thursday that four ageing systems will finally be replaced over the next few years.

“Good news America: floppy disks are out, 21st century tech is in,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. This is broadly true, provided “out” means “scheduled to leave by the end of 2028, subject to installation, funding and the traditional unpredictability of large government technology projects”.

Their replacement is the Enterprise Information Display System, or E-IDS. It will bring data from several systems together on a common digital platform, giving air traffic controllers access to the operational information and alerts they need to manage flights.

E-IDS will replace Information Display System 4, which tracks weather and operational information; the Automated Surface Observing System Controller Equipment Information Display System, which also provides weather information; the NAS Information Display System, which covers airports and other airspace conditions; and the En Route Information Display System, or ERIDS, which handles flight information.

The FAA says the new platform will also improve the collection and distribution of Pilot Reports and Notices to Airmen, known as NOTAMs. That area has previously supplied a rather persuasive argument for modernisation. In 2023, domestic flight departures across the country were temporarily halted after someone accidentally deleted a file from the NOTAM system.

Five facilities are already lined up for E-IDS upgrades: airports in Atlantic City, Nashville and Rochester, New York, plus data-processing hubs in Atlanta and Salt Lake City. The FAA plans to install the system at 435 sites by the end of 2028.

That deadline follows the ambitious three-year timetable Duffy set out last year for overhauling the national air traffic control system. The floppy disks, however, are only one particularly photogenic corner of a much larger problem.

In 2024, the Government Accountability Office found that 51 of the FAA’s 138 air traffic control systems were unsustainable because of shortages of replacement parts and insufficient funding to maintain or replace them.

Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill allocated $12.5 billion to the overhaul, but the FAA said last December that it needed another $20 billion for upgrade costs. The agency’s leaders are now urging Congress to pass the Modern Skies Act, which seeks $30 billion to complete air traffic control modernisation.

“To continue modernizing our air traffic control facility, Secretary Duffy and FAA Administrator Bedford are calling on Congress to pass the Modern Skies Act,” an FAA spokesperson said by email.

“It will modernize our air traffic control system, replace crumbling aviation infrastructure, and build world-class airports across the country,” the spokesperson added.

The GAO said in September that the FAA remained well short of what it needed, estimating another $10.2 billion for a second phase of upgrades that does not yet have a completion date. The floppy disk is thus heading for the departure gate, although nobody should be surprised if funding delays leave it circling for a while.