Our Objective(s)Assess FAA's identification and measurement of the impacts of external factors, such as weather and airline decision making, on Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) benefits and costs.
Why This AuditNextGen is a multibillion-dollar infrastructure effort that aims to modernize the National Airspace System (NAS) to provide safer and more efficient air traffic management. In 2021, we reported that NextGen's benefits had not kept pace with expectations due to implementation challenges and other factors, including external factors such as weather and airline decision making that are beyond FAA's control. Following the issuance of our report, Congress directed our office to report on the extent to which NextGen benefits and costs can change due to external factors.
What We FoundFAA identifies multiple external factors in its NextGen benefit and cost analyses.
FAA's Business Case Analysis Reports show it considered external factors in projecting individual NextGen programs' benefits and costs. For example, FAA considered the impact of external factors such as fuel prices, weather, and equipage rates in projecting the Data Communications program's benefits and costs.
FAA also identifies many external factors that impact NextGen's overall benefits and costs. For example, FAA's Business Case model incorporated external factors, such as the Terminal Area Forecast (TAF), which projects trends in future air traffic growth at major airports, as well as passenger value of time rates and weather to calculate and monetize reductions in delay minutes.
FAA has not systematically measured the impact of individual external factors on overall NextGen benefits and costs.
FAA conducts analyses to account for the possible impacts of external factors on the benefits and costs for individual NextGen programs. However, except for the TAF, FAA has not conducted a systematic analysis of how sensitive NextGen's overall benefits and costs are to changes in major external factors.
This impacts the overall reliability of FAA's projections of NextGen's benefits and costs. Since NextGen systems and their capabilities will continue to be deployed well beyond 2025, FAA's ability to prioritize programs and their scopes may not be as effective without the most accurate benefit and cost projections the Agency can produce.
RecommendationsWe made 1 recommendation to inform FAA's projections of overall benefits and costs for NextGen or other future NAS modernization efforts.
