Floppy disks and paper strips lurk behind US air traffic control
Not to worry nervous flyers, FAA vows to banish archaic systems... in a few years
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has confirmed that the US air traffic control system still runs on somewhat antiquated bits of technology, including floppy disks and paper strips.
This came during last week's Budget Hearing for the US House Appropriation Committee, in which the current FAA boss, Chris Rocheleau, explained to the committee that a new system would mean "no more floppy disks or paper strips."
Asked by Congressman Mike Quigley how the FAA plans to make up for the "12 percent of aeronautical information specialists" – who update charts, maps and key data – that had either left the FAA or were planning to leave, Rocheleau said "first and foremost we're assessing how we're doing that and what what can we do better – so for instance going from a paperbased process to an electronic based process, that's one of them."
A few staffers should probably expect their job descriptions to enlarge, it seems. Rocheleau said the FAA would keep hiring for critical safety positions but would also be "leveraging the talent that we do have that is staying and making sure that they can both do the critical safety functions as well as those support functions."
Asked by Kentucky representative Hal Rogers whether the FAA planned to "build a new system separate and apart from the present system" where it would simply switch the one system to "on and the other one to off," Rocheleau described the transition as "a little more complicated than that" while committee chair Tom Cole quipped "They'll be doing it while you're in the air, Mr Rogers."
The issue of outdated technology has troubled agencies for years. The recent outage at Newark Liberty International Airport - where a copper cable knocked out multiple systems including radar and comms and disrupted hundreds of flights – has thrown the problems faced by the FAA into sharp focus.
Rocheleau described a network systems refresh in which various units, including the ATC at Newark Liberty, would switch from the "copper wires" of the "old-fashioned telephone lines" over to fiber optic cables, as well as new modern systems for "radars and facilities," promising "intentional deliberate testing to make sure the redundancy and the resiliency is there to ensure the safety of the traveling public."
But this won't happen any time soon. The FAA boss admitted it would take some time to "replace the system," noting that only last week it issued a request for information for companies to pitch about how they might help the aviation agency make the "transition."
"The plan as we described it earlier is to essentially continue to operate the system as we do today and then switch over to the new technologies."
"No more floppy discs or paper strips."
The FAA's difficulties aren't new. A report [PDF] released in March described the majority of the systems in use at the agency as either "unsustainable" or "potentially unsustainable". It looked at 138 systems used by air traffic control and found that only 33 had no issues. Of the 105 problematic systems, 40 had been deployed more than 30 years ago, and six were deployed over 60 years ago.
According to the report, "challenges include no longer meeting mission needs, difficulty finding spare parts for the systems, and limited technical staff with expertise in repairing the aging system."
And, of course, the challenge of paying for it all as well as running both old and new systems in parallel during the switch-over.
For context, the FAA is not alone in using archaic technology. Navigation data aboard Boeing 747-436 airliners was updated via 3.5" floppy disks and a vacancy for a Windows 3.11 boffin at Deutsche Bahn appeared on a German job site in 2024. Indeed, it took until the same year for the Japanese government to rid itself of floppy disks.
In 2025, a report by Parliamentary spending watchdog, the Public Accounts Committee, warned of the parlous state of UK government legacy systems, many of which were "an end-of-life product, out of support from the supplier, [and] impossible to update."
There is a strong element of the "if it ain't broke, then don't fix it" mentality in many IT purchasing decisions. However, as the FAA will attest, skipping investment in systems can lead to breakdowns and problems that will likely be expensive to deal with and take years – or even decades – to resolve. ®