The US Department of Transportation (DOT) has selected technology firm Peraton, formerly a division of L3Harris, to manage the planned sweeping overhaul of the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic control (ATC) system.
Peraton is a Virginia-based provider of technologies for large, complex organisations, offering services including cyber security, systems engineering and modernisation, cloud computing and data management.
The company will be the ATC modernisation project’s “prime integrator”, tasked with collaborating with the DOT and FAA to “oversee the rollout of a brand-new air traffic control system to enhance the safety and efficiency of our skies”, the DOT said on 4 December.
The DOT in August issued a soliciation for a prime integrator. Secretary Sean Duffy two weeks ago said his department was close to selecting the winner but that he wanted first to discuss candidates with President Donald Trump, who has taken ATC modernisation as among his most-signature policy initiatives.
“We are thrilled to be working with Peraton because they share President Trump’s drive to modernise our skies safely at record speed,” Duffy says.
“Peraton’s… expertise with integrating complex tech platforms and successful collaboration with federal government agencies have positioned them well to execute on this ambitious timeline,” the DOT adds.
President Trump took up the modernisation effort days after the 29 January midair collision near Washington, DC involving a US Army Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter and a PSA Airlines MHIRJ regional jet. That collision killed all 67 people on both aircraft.
The project has had bipartisan support. In July, the US Congress passed and Trump signed legislation setting aside $12.5 billion for ATC modernisation. Duffy has estimated the entire envisioned project will cost $31.5 billion.
Trump and Duffy have promised to move much faster than is typical for the FAA, which spent more than a decade progressing with a badly delayed prior modernisation effort called NextGen.
Duffy’s plan calls for completing within 3.5 years the project’s first phase, called the “technology refresh” phase, which involves modernising facilities, surveillance radars and communication and information display systems.
Peraton will begin working with the FAA “immediately… providing centralised leadership to ensure change happens in a coordinated, effective way”, the DOT says. “They will guide the modernisation effort, keep it on track and support the FAA as new capabilities and technologies are deployed across” national airspace.
“We have a long track record of bringing the very best technological solutions, including the latest in artificial intelligence, to the most complex, high-consequence challenges facing our nation,” says Peraton chief executive Steve Schorer.
Peraton had been the government IT services business of Harris Corporation – now part of L3Harris – until that company sold the division in 2017 to private equity firm Veritas Capital Management.
