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Summary

On February 12, in response to a request from the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Aviation Subcommittee, we issued our report on FAA's Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) and its progress in aligning plans for the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NGATS) to meet the anticipated demand for air travel. We found that the JPDO has established ambitious, much-needed goals to create a system that will handle three times more air traffic and reduce FAA operating costs. JPDO's congressionally-mandated mission to leverage resources at other agencies is critical given that FAA conducts little long-term air traffic management research and the fact that most of the Agency's current $2.5 billion capital account goes toward keeping things running (i.e., sustainment). FAA agreed to implement our recommendations, which focused on actions FAA and the JPDO need to take to establish cost estimates, quantify benefits, align research between agencies, develop a service roadmap, reduce risk with next generation initiatives, and to speed the introduction of new capabilities into the National Airspace System.