Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO evaluated the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) progress in implementing the National Airspace System (NAS) Plan, focusing on: (1) the adequacy of FAA headquarters planning for regional installation and integration of NAS equipment; and (2) whether FAA regions had sufficient information to perform those tasks within established schedules.
GAO found that: (1) some headquarters implementation plans did not adequately identify regional tasks or project requirements; (2) FAA headquarters changed project requirements after regions began implementation; and (3) all of the projects it reviewed experienced some delivery delays, but in at least four cases, the delays allowed the regions sufficient time to prepare for implementation. GAO also found that: (1) the regions used separate information systems to manage various implementation tasks, and the systems frequently yielded data different from data that the headquarters systems produced; (2) regional information systems included inaccurate data on delivery dates and could not accurately estimate staffing needs; (3) regional and headquarters project milestones were not comparable; and (4) FAA had no clear timetable for implementing the Regional Project Management System (RPMS), which it will require in order to estimate staffing for future regional NAS implementation projects.
