The document critiqued is a report of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on the implementation of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). NextGen is a platform for transitioning air traffic from ground-based control to satellite navigation, digital communications, and automated position reporting by 2025 (Government Accountability Office (GAO), 2017). GAO presents the progress report and future projections on NextGen. According to GAO’s findings, FAA has done well with the implementation so far in costs, style, and achievements but continues to face internal and external challenges. This critique focuses on the FAA’s achievements as presented by GAO and discusses the future challenges of NextGen implementation.
Firstly, GAO used a wide variety of information sources to evaluate FAA but most of these were internal. The report lists FAA planning documents, briefs, reports, existing and original cost estimates, GAO and Department of Transportation’s (DOT) recommendations, and the project’s advisory groups (GAO, 2017). While GAO conducted interviews for the report, the interviewees were also FAA officials. Therefore, GAO’s report lacks external input and criticism because all these informants are connected to the NextGen project in a manner that prevents critical scrutiny. For example, it is expected that FAA officials and the NextGen advisory groups would speak majorly positively about the project’s progress. In addition, all the FAA documents are bound to show positive progress with NextGen’s implementation. The lack of information sourced from the media and other industry stakeholders weakens GAO’s statements and arguments concerning FAA’s efforts in implementing NextGen.
GAO established that FAA had achieved measurable success in NextGen’s implementation. The 2007 budget estimate placed the cost between $29 and $42 billion, and GAO found FAA to be within this range (GAO, 2017). Considering that 2025 is closer to the reporting period than 2007 when the project was initiated, FAA has made a great effort in resource utilization to remain below the $42 billion limit. However, GAO’s report based this conclusion on FAA’s estimate, which is set at $20.6 billion with $5.8 billion used in 2014. Nevertheless, sticking to the budget in the prevailing inflation rates is commendable.
FAA has selected a practical and feasible method of implementing NextGen. GAO found that the project was rolled out in phases to prevent the last changes that would be costly and time-consuming. The incremental and iterative process has allowed FAA to capture errors early on and correct them before the next rollout. GAO is positive that this implementation methodology is the driving force of FAA and NextGen’s success. While these phases should ease FAA’s work, GAO found that FAA struggled with monitoring and reporting of the project’s progress. Since the rollout of the first phase, FAA has not developed a measuring and reporting mechanism or metrics, indicating serious internal malpractice or system failure. GAO recommended the development of a task force including key stakeholders to create metrics for regular reporting.
In conclusion, the GAO report reviews FAA’s progress in rolling out NextGen and accompanying challenges. GAO makes clear points about FAA’s phase-by-phase implementation such as the ability to stay within the 2007 budget estimate and incremental rollout to reduce errors. The sources of information used for the review include FAA and other stakeholders working on the NextGen project. Therefore, the report lacks external critique because all contributing parties are inclined to support FAA.
References
Government Accountability Office. (2017). Air traffic control modernization: Progress and challenges in implementing NextGen. Web.