United States Government Accountability Office

GAO Testimony 

Before the Subcommittee on Aviation, 

Committee on Transportation and 

Infrastructure, House of Representatives

NEXT GENERATION AIR 

TRANSPORTATION 

SYSTEM 

Status of the Transition to 

the Future Air Traffic 

Control System 

Statement of Gerald L. Dillingham, Ph.D. 

Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues 

For Release on Delivery

Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT 

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

 

GAO-07-784T 
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

May 9, 2007

NEXT GENERATION AIR 

TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM 

Status of the Transition to the Future Air 

Traffic Control System 

Highlights of GAO-07-784T, a testimony 

before the Subcommittee on Aviation, 

Committee on Transportation and

Infrastructure, House of Representatives 

During the last few years, FAA has made significant progress in 

implementing businesslike operations and procedures for managing and 

acquiring air traffic control systems. These operations and procedures have 

improved FAA’s management of the current system and should better 

position the agency to manage the enormously complex transition to 

NextGen. One outcome of these changes is that FAA has reported exceeding 

its system acquisition goals for the past 3 fiscal years. However, further 

work remains to fully address past problems in acquiring systems and 

institutionalizing changes throughout the agency. 

JPDO has continued to make progress in furthering its key planning 

documents. JPDO has experienced delays in the release of key documents, 

but currently plans to have initial versions of these documents released by 

July 2007. JPDO has been working since 2005 to establish a memorandum of 

understanding between its partner agencies, although as of May 4, 2007, the 

memorandum had been signed by the Departments of Transportation and 

Commerce and NASA, but was not yet signed by the Departments of Defense 

and Homeland Security. JPDO is also working with the Office of

Management and Budget to establish mechanisms to identify NextGenrelated projects across the partner agencies and consider NextGen as a 

unified, cross-agency program for funding decisions. 

 

FAA and JPDO continue to face a number of challenges in moving toward 

NextGen, including questions about FAA’s technical and contract 

management expertise; FAA’s ability to maintain a number of existing 

systems, including monitoring and addressing equipment outages to ensure 

the safety of these existing systems as it transitions to NextGen; and 

conducting necessary human factors research. In addition, while JPDO 

recently estimated that the total federal cost for NextGen infrastructure 

through 2025 will range between $15 billion and $22 billion, questions remain 

about which entities will fund and conduct the necessary research, 

development, and demonstration projects that will be key to achieving 

certain NextGen capabilities. Also, JPDO faces a continuing challenge in 

ensuring the involvement of all key stakeholders, such as active air traffic 

controllers and system technicians, in its NextGen planning efforts. 

The nation’s current air traffic 

control system is reaching its 

capacity limits as demand for air 

transportation grows. The Next 

Generation Air Transportation 

System (NextGen) represents a 

new system that will use state-ofthe-art technologies and 

procedures. Transitioning to 

NextGen will require the Federal 

Aviation Administration (FAA) to 

continue to sustain the current air 

traffic control system while

acquiring new systems on schedule 

and on budget. In 2003, Congress 

authorized the creation of the Joint

Planning and Development Office

(JPDO), housed within FAA, to

plan NextGen and coordinate the

transition. GAO’s testimony

focuses on the progress FAA is 

making in implementing

businesslike operations that could 

provide a foundation for managing

the transition to NextGen, the 

status of JPDO’s planning and

facilitation of NextGen, and some

key challenges that FAA and JPDO

need to address in moving toward 

NextGen. This statement is based

on GAO’s November 2006 report

and recent testimonies as well as

ongoing work. GAO’s November

report recommended that FAA 

study its technical and contract

management expertise and that

JPDO take actions to

institutionalize its collaborative 

practices. FAA and JPDO said they

would consider our 

recommendations. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-784T.

To view the full product, click on the link 

above. For more information, contact Gerald 

L. Dillingham, Ph.D., at (202) 512-2834 or 

dillinghamg@gao.gov. 
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today to discuss the 

future of air traffic control modernization. The nation’s current air traffic 

control system is reaching its capacity limits as demand for air 

transportation continues to grow each year. The Next Generation Air 

Transportation System (NextGen) represents a transformation to a new 

system that will use satellite-based technologies and state-of-the-art 

procedures to handle the increasing volume of air traffic, while further 

improving safety and security. Transitioning to NextGen, however, will 

require the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to continue to operate

and sustain the current air traffic control system while simultaneously 

acquiring and deploying the new NextGen systems on budget and on 

schedule. 

In December 2000, President Clinton signed an executive order, and 

Congress passed supporting legislation that, together, provided FAA with 

the authority to create the performance-based1

 Air Traffic Organization 

(ATO) to administer and improve FAA’s management of its current air 

traffic control modernization efforts. In 2003, Congress authorized the 

creation of the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO), housed 

within FAA, to plan for and coordinate a transition to NextGen—

envisioned as a move from largely ground-based radars to precision 

satellite-based navigation and including digital, networked 

communications; an integrated weather system; layered, adaptive security; 

and more. In addition to FAA, JPDO operates in conjunction with multiple 

federal partner agencies and with the private sector to collaboratively 

conceptualize and plan the NextGen system.2

The reauthorization of FAA provides an opportunity to examine how the 

agency is managing the transformation to NextGen. My testimony today 

focuses on the following questions: (1) What progress is FAA making in 

implementing initiatives that could provide a solid foundation for 

managing the transition to NextGen? (2) What is the status of JPDO’s 

 1

Performance-based organizations are discrete units, led by a chief operating officer, that

commit to clear objectives, specific measurable goals, customer service standards, and 

targets for improved performance. 

2

JPDO’s partner agencies include the Departments of Transportation, Commerce, Defense, 

and Homeland Security; FAA; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); 

and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. 

Page 1 GAO-07-784T 
planning and facilitation of the transition to NextGen? and (3) What are 

some key challenges that FAA and JPDO need to address in moving 

toward NextGen? My statement is based on our November 2006 report3

and recent testimonies4

 as well as on-going work. We conducted this work 

in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

In summary: 

• During the last few years, FAA has made significant progress in 

implementing businesslike operations and procedures for acquiring and 

managing air traffic control systems which have improved FAA’s 

management of the current system and should better position the agency 

to manage the enormously complex transition to NextGen. However, 

further work remains to fully address past problems in acquiring systems 

and to institutionalize changes throughout the agency. By creating the Air 

Traffic Organization and appointing a chief operating officer, FAA 

established a new management structure and adopted more leading 

practices of private sector businesses to address the cost, schedule, and 

performance shortfalls that have plagued air traffic control acquisitions. 

One outcome of these changes is that for the past 3 fiscal years, FAA has 

reported exceeding its system acquisition goals. For fiscal year 2006, FAA 

reported that its critical acquisitions were 100 percent on budget and over

97 percent on schedule. FAA has also improved its management of the air 

traffic control system through increased efforts to achieve cost savings by

outsourcing and consolidating facilities. Currently, FAA is seeking savings 

through outsourcing its planned nationwide deployment of a critical 

NextGen surveillance technology. To help sustain progress in managing 

acquisitions and address remaining program risks, FAA is working with 

the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to develop goals and 

milestones for FAA to meet in further reducing acquisition risks. Despite 

FAA’s progress, however, the FAA administrator’s term ends in September 

2007 and the chief operating officer left in February 2007, after serving 3 

years. Thus, FAA will have lost two of its significant agents for change by

 3

GAO, Next Generation Air Transportation System: Progress and Challenges Associated

with the Transformation of the National Airspace System, GAO-07-25 (Washington, D.C.: 

Nov. 13, 2006). 

4

GAO, Federal Aviation Administration: Key Issues in Ensuring the Efficient 

Development and Safe Operation of the Next Generation Air Transportation System, 

GAO-07-636T (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 22, 2007) and GAO, Joint Planning and

Development Office: Progress and Key Issues in Planning the Transition to the Next

Generation Air Transportation System, GAO-07-693T (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 29, 2007).

Page 2 GAO-07-784T 
the end of September. FAA’s new leaders will need to demonstrate the 

same commitment to improvement as the outgoing leaders. 

• JPDO has made progress in furthering its key planning documents, but 

continues to face challenges in institutionalizing its collaborative 

practices. JPDO is developing several key documents—a Concept of 

Operations, an Enterprise Architecture, and an Integrated Work Plan—

that together form the foundation of NextGen planning. JPDO has missed 

earlier milestones regarding the release of its Concept of Operations and 

Enterprise Architecture. JPDO currently plans to release initial versions of

all three documents by July 2007. As we noted in November 2006, JPDO is 

fundamentally a planning and coordinating body that lacks authority over 

the key human and technological resources of its partner agencies. Thus, 

institutionalizing the collaborative process between these partner agencies

will continue to be critical to JPDO’s success. However, JPDO still does 

not have in place a formal, long-term agreement among its partner 

agencies on their roles and responsibilities in planning and facilitating the 

transition to NextGen. JPDO has been working since 2005 to establish a

memorandum of understanding between the partner agencies, although as 

of May 4, 2007, the memorandum had been signed by the Departments of 

Transportation and Commerce and NASA; the Departments of Defense 

and Homeland Security had not yet signed.5

 It will also be important for 

institutionalizing collaboration to incorporate NextGen goals and activities 

into the partner agencies’ key planning documents, as FAA is currently 

doing with its Operational Evolution Partnership—FAA’s new 

implementation plan for NextGen. JPDO is also working with OMB to 

establish mechanisms to identify NextGen-related projects across the 

partner agencies and consider NextGen as a unified, cross-agency program 

for funding decisions. 

• FAA and JPDO continue to face a number of challenges in moving toward 

NextGen, including determining whether the organizations have the 

adequate and appropriate technical and contract management expertise, 

managing and sustaining the current system, identifying who will conduct

necessary research and development activities, obtaining stable

leadership, conducting needed human factors research, and ensuring the 

involvement of all key stakeholders. In November 2006, we recommended 

that FAA examine its strengths and weaknesses with regard to the 

technical and contract management expertise that will be required to 

define, implement, and integrate the numerous complex programs 

 5

According to JPDO, it is not appropriate for the Office of Science and Technology Policy,

as a White House agency, to sign the MOU.

Page 3 GAO-07-784T 
inherent in the transition to NextGen. In response to our recommendation, 

FAA is working with the National Academy of Public Administration to 

explore these issues. JPDO recently estimated that the total federal cost 

for NextGen infrastructure through 2025 will range between $15 billion 

and $22 billion. However, questions remain over which entities will fund 

and conduct some of the necessary research, development, and 

demonstration projects that will be key to achieving certain NextGen 

capabilities. According to officials at FAA and JPDO, they are currently 

studying these issues and trying to assess how much research and 

development FAA can assume. Of critical importance in the area of 

NextGen research is human factors research given the fundamental 

changes that NextGen envisions in the roles of air traffic controllers and 

pilots due to automation and changes in surveillance technologies and 

communications. JPDO has suffered from a lack of stable leadership and is 

now functioning under its third director. This issue is exacerbated by 

JPDO’s senior policy committee, which has met only four times and has 

not met at all as a formal body since November 2005. Finally, JPDO faces a 

continuing challenge in ensuring the involvement of all key stakeholders, 

such as active air traffic controllers and technicians. Our work on past air

traffic control modernization projects has shown that a lack of 

stakeholder or expert involvement early and throughout a project can lead 

to costly increases and delays. 

In November 2006, we recommended that the Secretary of Transportation 

direct FAA to undertake a formal exploration of the agency’s strengths and 

weaknesses with regard to the technical expertise and contract 

management expertise that will be required to define, implement, and 

integrate the numerous complex programs and systems inherent in the 

transition to NextGen. We recommended that the Secretary direct JPDO to 

take actions to institutionalize the partner agencies’ collaboration in 

supporting NextGen, including action on a memorandum of understanding 

among the partner agencies, actions to finalize procedures to leverage 

partner agency resources, and actions to develop procedures for dispute 

resolution. We also recommended that the Secretary direct JPDO to 

determine whether key stakeholders and expertise are not currently 

represented in JPDO planning efforts. FAA and JPDO officials neither 

agreed nor disagreed with our recommendations, but said they would 

consider them. 

Page 4 GAO-07-784T 
During the last few years, FAA has made significant progress in 

implementing businesslike processes and procedures for managing and 

acquiring air traffic control systems. This contrasts with the previous 

decade’s air traffic control modernization program which was 

characterized by chronic cost and schedule difficulties with systems 

acquisitions. The implementation of these businesslike operations has 

improved FAA’s management of the current system and should better 

position the agency to manage the enormously complex transition to 

NextGen. However, further work remains to fully address past problems 

and institutionalize these changes throughout the agency, especially given 

the changing leadership within both FAA and ATO. 

A successful transition to NextGen will depend, to a great extent, on FAA’s 

ability to manage the acquisition and integration of multiple NextGen 

systems. In recent years, FAA has made significant progress toward 

improving its management of acquisitions. However, FAA’s air traffic 

control modernization program remains on our list of high risk programs 

because of its history of systemic management and acquisition problems 

that contributed to cost growth, schedule slippages, and performance 

shortfalls and the relative recentness of the turnaround in the program’s 

performance. The realization of NextGen goals could be severely 

compromised if FAA’s improved program management and outcomes are 

not institutionalized and carried over into the implementation of NextGen, 

which is an even more complex and ambitious undertaking than past 

modernization efforts. 

By creating ATO and appointing a chief operating officer (COO) to head 

ATO, FAA established a new management structure and adopted more 

leading practices of private sector businesses to address the cost, 

schedule, and performance shortfalls that have plagued air traffic control 

acquisitions. ATO has worked to create a flatter organization, with fewer 

management layers, and has reported reducing executive staffing by 20 

percent and total management by 16 percent. In addition, FAA uses a 

performance management system to hold managers responsible for the 

Improved, 

Businesslike 

Operations Should 

Better Position FAA 

to Implement and 

Manage NextGen, but 

Further Work 

Remains 

Progress Has Been Made 

but Further Work Remains 

to Institutionalize Recent 

Improvements in 

Management and 

Acquisition Processes 

Page 5 GAO-07-784T 
success of ATO. More specifically, to better manage its acquisitions and 

address problems we have identified,

6

 FAA has 

• undertaken human capital initiatives to improve its acquisition workforce 

culture and build towards a results-oriented, high-performing organization; 

• developed and applied a process improvement model to assess the 

maturity of its software and systems capabilities resulting in, among other 

things, enhanced productivity and greater ability to predict schedules and 

resources; and 

• reported that it has established a policy and guidance on using earned 

value management (EVM) in its acquisition management system and that 

19 of its major programs are currently using EVM.7

One outcome of the implementation of the changes in program 

management and operations is that for the past three fiscal years, FAA has 

reported exceeding system acquisition goals. FAA’s goals for fiscal year 

2006 were to have 85 percent of critical acquisition programs within 10 

percent of budget, as reflected in its capital investment plan, and to have 

85 percent of critical acquisition programs on schedule. For fiscal year 

2006, FAA reported that its critical acquisitions were 100 percent on 

budget and over 97 percent on schedule. 

FAA has also improved its management of its air traffic control program 

through increased efforts to achieve cost savings by outsourcing and 

consolidating facilities. For example, FAA is outsourcing flight service 

stations and estimates a $2.2 billion savings over 12 years. Similarly, FAA 

is seeking savings through outsourcing its planned nationwide deployment 

of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), a critical 

NextGen surveillance technology. FAA is planning to implement ADS-B 

FAA Has Reported Cost 

Savings through 

Outsourcing and Facility 

Consolidations 

 6

GAO, Federal Aviation Administration: Stronger Architecture Program Needed to Guide 

Systems Modernization Efforts, GAO-05-266 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 29, 2005); Air Traffic 

Control: System Management Capabilities Improved, but More can be Done to 

Institutionalize Improvements, GAO-04-901 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 20, 2004); and 

Information Technology: FAA Has Many Investment Management Capabilities in Place, 

but More Oversight of Operational Systems is Needed, GAO-04-822 (Washington, D.C.: 

Aug. 20, 2004). 

7

EVM is a project management technique that combines measurements of technical 

performance, schedule performance, and cost performance with the intent of providing an

early warning of problems while there is time for corrective action. 

Page 6 GAO-07-784T 
through a performance-based contract in which FAA will pay 

“subscription” charges for the ADS-B services and the vendor will be 

responsible for building and maintaining the infrastructure. (FAA also 

reports that the ADS-B rollout will allow the agency to remove 50 percent

of its current secondary radars, saving money in the program’s baseline. 

The remaining radars will serve as a back-up system to ADS-B.) As for 

consolidating facilities, FAA is currently restructuring ATO’s 

administrative service areas from nine offices to three offices, which FAA 

estimates will save up to $460 million over 10 years. 

We previously reported that FAA should pursue further cost control 

options, such as exploring additional opportunities for contracting out 

services and consolidating facilities. However, we recognize that FAA 

faces challenges with consolidating facilities, an action that can be 

politically sensitive. In recognition of this sensitivity, the administration’s 

reauthorization proposal presents an initiative in which the Secretary of 

Transportation would be authorized to establish an independent, fivemember Commission, known as the Realignment and Consolidation of 

Aviation Facilities and Services Commission, to independently analyze 

FAA’s recommendations to realign facilities or services. The Commission

would then send its own recommendations to the President and Congress. 

In the past, we noted the importance of potential cost savings through 

facility consolidations; however, any such consolidations must be handled

through a process that solicits and considers stakeholder input throughout 

and fully considers the safety implications of both proposed facility 

closures and consolidations. 

Sustaining the acquisition progress achieved to date and addressing the 

remaining program risks remains a challenge for FAA. FAA’s air traffic 

control modernization program has been on GAO’s high-risk list since 

1995. In recent years the agency has made measurable improvements in its 

acquisition processes. GAO acknowledged those improvements in its 2007 

high risk report.8

 In 2005, FAA submitted a plan to OMB for reducing the

risks of cost overruns, schedule slippages, and performance shortfalls with 

goals and milestones for FAA to meet in further reducing acquisition risks. 

FAA expects to complete the risk mitigation plan by the end of calendar 

year 2008. 

Mitigating Remaining 

Risks and 

Institutionalization of 

Improvements Will 

Continue to Be a Challenge 

for FAA 

 8

GAO, High Risk Series: An Update, GAO-07-310 (Washington, D.C.: January 2007). 

Page 7 GAO-07-784T 
Additionally, we have an ongoing study that is examining FAA’s 

performance and reporting on its critical acquisitions, including applicable

performance measures. We are exploring FAA’s use of the most recently 

approved cost and schedule baselines, which may have changed 

significantly since the start of an acquisition, to measure and report on 

program performance. Rebaselining acquisitions is an accepted practice 

and there can be valid reasons for doing so, such as when changes in a 

program’s requirements fundamentally alter the acquisition and make the 

originally approved schedule unrealistic. Because rebaselining resets the

cost and schedule variances to zero, however, we want to verify that FAA’s 

practice is not masking acquisition performance problems and is providing 

full disclosure to the Congress. We expect to issue a report on these issues 

later this year. 

It will be important, as FAA begins to implement NextGen systems, to 

maintain critical acquisitions on schedule and on budget to meet the goal 

of transitioning to NextGen by 2025 and to prevent escalation of the costs 

of NextGen. While FAA has implemented many positive changes to its 

management and business processes in recent years, it currently faces the 

loss of key leaders. We reported that the experiences of successful 

transformations and change management initiatives in large public and 

private organizations suggest that it can take 5 to 7 years or more until 

such initiatives are fully implemented and cultures are transformed in a 

sustainable manner.9

 Such changes require focused, full-time attention 

from senior leadership and a dedicated team. However, FAA will have lost

two of its significant agents for change—the FAA administrator and the 

COO—by the end of September 2007. The administrator’s term ends in 

September 2007; the COO left in February 2007, after serving 3 years. For 

the financial, management, and acquisition improvements to further 

permeate the agency, and thus provide a firm foundation upon which to 

implement NextGen, FAA’s new leaders will need to demonstrate the same 

commitment to improvement as the outgoing leaders. Because this is a 

critical time for FAA, the agency needs to move expeditiously to find a 

new COO for ATO. A COO who could commit to the current statutory 5-

year term also would be useful in providing stable leadership at ATO as 

foundational NextGen systems begin to be implemented. 

Institutionalizing Changes 

Within FAA Will Require 

Continued Strong 

Leadership

 9

GAO, National Airspace System: Transformation will Require Cultural Change, 

Balanced Funding Priorities, and Use of All Available Management Tools, GAO-06-154 

(Washington, D.C.: Oct. 14, 2005). 

Page 8 GAO-07-784T 
JPDO Has Made 

Progress in Planning 

NextGen, but 

Continues to Face 

Challenges with Its 

Organization 

JPDO has continued to make progress in furthering its key planning 

documents, but still faces challenges in institutionalizing its collaborative 

practices. 

JPDO’s authorizing legislation requires the office to create a multi-agency

research and development plan for the transition to NextGen. To comply, 

JPDO is developing several key documents that together form the 

foundation of NextGen planning. These documents include a NextGen 

Concept of Operations, a NextGen Enterprise Architecture, and an 

Integrated Work Plan. 

The Concept of Operations is the most fundamental of JPDO’s key 

planning documents, as the other key documents flow from it. Although an 

earlier version was delayed so that stakeholder comments could be 

addressed, Version 1.2 of the Concept of Operations is currently posted on

JPDO’s Website for review and comment by the aviation community. This 

226-page document provides written descriptions of how the NextGen 

system is envisioned to operate in 2025 and beyond, including highlighting 

key research and policy issues that will need to be addressed.10 For 

example, some key policy issues are associated with automating the air 

traffic control system, including the need for a backup plan in case 

automation fails, the responsibilities and liabilities of different 

stakeholders during an automation failure, and the level of monitoring 

needed by pilots when automation is ensuring safe separation between 

aircraft. Over the next few months, JPDO plans to address the public 

comments it receives and issue a revised version of the Concept of 

Operations. 

JPDO Has Made Progress 

Toward Releasing Key 

Planning Documents, 

although Further Work 

Remains 

 10Following an introductory section, the Concept of Operations has eight sections covering

air traffic management operations, airport operations and infrastructure services, netcentric infrastructure services, shared situational awareness services, security services, 

environmental management framework, safety management services, and performance

management services. 

Page 9 GAO-07-784T 
In addition to the Concept of Operations, JPDO is working on an 

Enterprise Architecture for NextGen—that is, a technical description of 

the NextGen system, akin to blueprints for a building. The Enterprise 

Architecture is meant to provide a common tool for planning and 

understanding the complex, interrelated systems that will make up 

NextGen. According to JPDO officials, the Enterprise Architecture will 

provide the means for coordinating among the partner agencies and 

private sector manufacturers, aligning relevant research and development 

activities, and integrating equipment. JPDO plans to issue an early version 

of its Enterprise Architecture next month, although three previous release 

dates—March 2006, June 2006, and September 2006—were not met. 

According to JPDO officials, until the Enterprise Architecture is released, 

precise cost estimates cannot be developed and the partner agencies’

research plans cannot be coordinated.

Finally, JPDO is developing an Integrated Work Plan that will describe the 

capabilities needed to transition to NextGen from the current system and 

provide the research, policy and regulation, and acquisition timelines 

necessary to achieve NextGen by 2025. The Integrated Work Plan is akin 

to a project plan and will be critical for fiscal year 2009 partner agency 

budget and program planning. According to a JPDO official, the office 

intends to issue its initial draft of the Integrated Work Plan in July 2007.

Page 10 GAO-07-784T 
Figure 1: Key NextGen Planning Documents 

We have discussed JPDO’s planning documents with JPDO officials and 

examined both an earlier version of JPDO’s Concept of Operations11 and 

the current version that is out for public comment.12 As we previously 

testified, JPDO is focusing on the right types of key documents for the 

foundation of NextGen planning.13 As for the Concept of Operations, the 

current version is improved from the prior version due to additional detail. 

Nonetheless, we believe that it still does not include key elements such as 

scenarios illustrating NextGen operations, a summary of NextGen’s 

operational impact on users and other stakeholders, and an analysis of the 

benefits, alternatives, and trade-offs that were considered for NextGen. In 

addition, it lacks an overall description that ties together the eight key 

areas that the document covers. As noted earlier, JPDO does plan to 

release another version of the Concept of Operations later this year. 

In fact, JPDO plans further versions of all of its key planning documents. 

We see the development of all three of JPDO’s key documents as part of an

Concept of

Operations

“What”

the NextGen end-state will be

“When”

NextGen capabilities will be researched,

developed and implemented

“Why”

NextGen investments make sense

Enterprise

Architecture

Integrated

Work Plan

OMB Business

Case 

(Exhibit 300)

Source: JPDO.

NexGen Blueprint

 11Concept of Operations for the Next Generation Air Transportation System, version 0.2,

July 24, 2006. 

12We reviewed JPDO’s current Concept of Operations for the Next Generation Air

Transportation System, version 1.2, dated February 28, 2007, by comparing it with the IEEE

Standard 1362-1998 for concept of operations documents. 

13GAO-07-693T. 

Page 11 GAO-07-784T 
iterative and evolutionary process. Thus, it is unlikely that any of these 

documents will ever be truly “finalized,” but rather will continue to evolve 

throughout the implementation of NextGen to reflect, for example, the 

development of new technologies or problems uncovered during research 

and development of planned technologies. 

Finally, while each of the three key documents has a specific purpose, the 

scope and technical sophistication of these documents makes it difficult 

for some stakeholders to understand the basics of the NextGen planning 

effort. To address this issue, JPDO is currently drafting what the office 

refers to as a “blueprint” for NextGen, meant to be a short, high-level, nontechnical presentation of NextGen goals and capabilities. We believe that

such a document could help some stakeholders develop a better 

understanding of NextGen and the planning effort to date. 

In our November 2006 report, we noted that JPDO is fundamentally a 

planning and coordinating body that lacks authority over the key human 

and technological resources of its partner agencies. Consequently, 

institutionalizing the collaborative process with its partner agencies will 

be critical to JPDO’s ability to facilitate the implementation of NextGen. 

JPDO, however, has not established some practices significant to 

institutionalizing its collaborative process. For example, at a fundamental 

level, JPDO does not have formal, long-term agreements among its partner 

agencies on their roles and responsibilities in creating NextGen. There is

no mechanism that assures that the partner agencies’ commitment will 

continue over the 20-year timeframe of NextGen or that ensures 

accountability to JPDO. According to JPDO officials, they are working to 

establish a memorandum of understanding (MOU), signed by the Secretary 

or other high-ranking official from each partner agency, which will broadly 

define the partner agencies’ roles and responsibilities. JPDO first informed

us of the development of this MOU in August 2005; in November 2006 we 

recommended that JPDO finalize the MOU and present it to JPDO’s senior 

policy committee for its consideration and action. Nonetheless, according 

to a JPDO official, as of May 4, 2007, the MOU has been signed by the 

Departments of Transportation and Commerce and NASA, but remains 

unsigned by the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. 

Another key method for institutionalizing the collaborative effort is 

incorporating NextGen goals and activities into the partner agencies’ key 

planning documents. For example, we noted in November 2006 that NASA 

and FAA had incorporated NextGen goals into their strategic plans. These

types of efforts will be critical to JPDO’s ability to leverage its partner 

Institutionalizing the 

Collaborative Process Will 

Continue to be Critical to 

JPDO’s Facilitating 

NextGen 

Page 12 GAO-07-784T 
agency resources for continued JPDO planning efforts. Even more 

importantly, these efforts will be critical to helping ensure that partner 

agencies—given competing missions and resource demands—dedicate the 

resources necessary to support the implementation of NextGen research 

efforts or system acquisitions. 

Recognizing that JPDO does not have authority over partner agency

resources, FAA and JPDO have initiated several efforts to institutionalize 

NextGen. First, JPDO is working with FAA to refocus one of FAA’s key 

planning documents on the implementation of NextGen—an effort that 

also appears to be improving the collaboration and coordination between 

JPDO and ATO. FAA has expanded and revamped its Operational 

Evolution Plan (OEP)—renamed the Operational Evolution Partnership—

to become FAA’s implementation plan for NextGen.14 The OEP is being 

expanded to apply to all of FAA and is intended to become a 

comprehensive description of how the agency will implement NextGen, 

including the required technologies, procedures, and resources. (Figure 2 

shows the new OEP framework.) An ATO official told us that the new OEP 

is to be consistent with JPDO’s key planning documents and its budget 

guidance to the partner agencies. According to FAA, the new OEP will 

allow it to demonstrate appropriate budget control and linkage to 

NextGen plans and help ensure that FAA’s research and development is 

relevant to NextGen’s requirements. According to FAA documents, the 

agency plans to publish a new OEP in June 2007.

 14Prior to expansion of the OEP, the document centered around plans for increasing 

capacity and efficiency at 35 major airports. 

Page 13 GAO-07-784T 
Figure 2: New OEP Framework 

Note: The concentric rings indicate the nature of initiative development from the outer ring (NextGen 

strategic initiatives), in which new programs and concepts are analyzed and demonstrated; to the 

second ring, where decisions are made regarding safety, operating policy, performance standards, 

and certification requirements; to the third ring (technical development), where concepts are 

prototyped and investment analysis decisions are made. The progression through the rings is not 

necessarily linear, and a program may be in more than one ring at a time. Data communications, for 

example, is in the technical development ring and also in the middle ring as policy and rulemaking is

considered. The core is divided into three sections, which indicate the FAA offices that implement the 

final NextGen program. 

In addition, to further align FAA’s efforts with JPDO’s plans for NextGen, 

FAA has created a NextGen review board to oversee the OEP. This review

board is co-chaired by JPDO’s director and ATO’s vice president of 

operations planning services. Initiatives, such as concept demonstrations 

Aircraft &

Operator

Requirements

Air 

Traffic

Operations

Airport

Development

Source: JPDO.

NextGen Strategic Initiatives

Safety, Policy & Certification

Technical Development

NextGen

Page 14 GAO-07-784T 
or research, proposed for inclusion in the OEP now need to go through the 

review board for approval. These efforts are assessed for relation to 

NextGen requirements, concept maturity, and risk. An ATO official told us 

that the new OEP process should also help identify some smaller 

programs that might be inconsistent with NextGen and which could be 

discontinued. Additionally, as a further step towards integrating ATO and

JPDO, the administration’s reauthorization proposal calls for the JPDO 

director to be a voting member of FAA’s joint resources council and ATO’s 

executive council. 

While progress is being made in incorporating NextGen initiatives into 

FAA’s strategic and planning documents, more remains to be done with 

FAA and the other JPDO partner agencies. For example, one critical 

activity that remains in this area will be synchronizing the NextGen 

enterprise architecture—once JPDO releases and further refines it—with 

the partner agencies’ enterprise architectures. Doing so should help align 

agencies’ current work with NextGen while simultaneously identifying 

gaps between agency plans and NextGen plans. Also, while FAA is making 

significant progress toward creating an implementation plan for NextGen 

with its OEP, the other partner agencies are less far along or have not 

begun such efforts. JPDO’s lack of authority over partner agency 

resources will be minimized as a challenge if the partner agencies commit 

to NextGen goals and initiatives at a structural level. By further 

incorporation of NextGen efforts into strategic planning documents, the 

partner agencies will better institutionalize their commitments to JPDO 

and the NextGen initiative. 

Finally, JPDO has made progress in establishing mechanisms for 

leveraging partner agency resources—another important practice for 

institutionalizing JPDO’s collaborative effort. As we noted in our 

November 2006 report, JPDO is working with OMB to develop a process 

that would allow OMB to identify NextGen-related projects across the 

partner agencies and consider NextGen as a unified, cross-agency 

program. We recommended that JPDO develop written procedures that 

formalize agreements with OMB regarding the leveraging of partner 

agency resources and the identification of NextGen-related programs 

within agency budgets. We recently met with OMB officials who said that 

they felt there has been significant progress with JPDO over the last year. 

JPDO is now working on an OMB Exhibit 300 form for NextGen that will 

allow JPDO to present OMB a joint business case for the NextGen-related 

Page 15 GAO-07-784T 
efforts within the partner agencies and will be used as input to funding 

decisions for NextGen research and acquisitions across the agencies.15

This Exhibit 300 will be due to OMB in September 2007 to inform 

decisions about the partner agencies’ 2009 budget submissions. 

Ultimately, the success of JPDO will have to be measured in the efforts of

its partner agencies to implement policies and procedures, conduct 

research, and acquire systems that support NextGen. For example, JPDO 

is currently working to establish a joint weather office involving FAA and 

the Departments of Defense and Commerce. The goal of this joint office is 

to eliminate redundancies in weather research and leverage the resources 

of these partner agencies to implement a joint weather product by 2012, 

according to a senior JPDO official. Similarly, JPDO has secured a 

commitment from the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security 

and FAA to jointly fund the developmental testing of scenarios for 

network enabled operations. 

With regard to implementation of NextGen technologies, JPDO can point 

to its success in collaborating with FAA to fund and speed FAA’s rollout of 

two systems considered cornerstone technologies for NextGen: ADS-B 

and System Wide Information Management (SWIM). ADS-B will replace 

many existing radars with less costly ground-based transceivers. SWIM 

will provide an initial network centric capability to all the users of the air

transportation system. This means that the FAA and the Departments of 

Homeland Security and Defense will eventually share a common, realtime, secure picture of aviation operations across the airspace system. 

Identifying such NextGen programs across the partner agencies and 

establishing implementation plans for them in JPDO’s Integrated Work 

Plan will be critical going forward to creating performance metrics for 

JPDO. 

 15Section 300 of OMB Circular No. A-11, Preparation, Submission, and Execution of the

Budget (Nov. 2, 2005), sets forth requirements for federal agencies for planning, budgeting, 

acquiring, and managing information technology capital assets. 

Page 16 GAO-07-784T 
FAA and JPDO continue to face a number of challenges as they move 

toward the implementation of NextGen systems and procedures, including 

assessing FAA’s technical and contract management expertise, sustaining 

the current air traffic control system, identifying which entities will handle 

necessary research and development, addressing JPDO’s leadership 

challenges, conducting human factors research, and ensuring the 

involvement of all key stakeholders. 

In the past, a lack of expertise contributed to weaknesses in FAA’s 

management of air traffic control modernization efforts, and industry 

experts with whom we spoke questioned whether FAA will have the 

technical expertise needed to implement NextGen. In addition to technical 

expertise, FAA will need contract management expertise to oversee the 

systems acquisitions and integration involved in NextGen. 

Recognizing the complexity of the NextGen implementation effort and the 

possibility that FAA may not have the in-house expertise to manage it 

without assistance, we have identified potential approaches for 

supplementing FAA’s capabilities. One of these approaches is for FAA to 

contract with a lead systems integrator (LSI). Generally, an LSI is a prime 

contractor that would help to ensure that the discrete systems used in 

NextGen will operate together and whose responsibilities may include 

designing system solutions, developing requirements, and selecting major

system and subsystem contractors. The government has used LSIs before 

for programs that require the integration of multiple complex systems. Our 

research indicates that although LSIs have certain advantages, such as the 

knowledge, understanding, skills, and ability to integrate functions across 

various systems, their use also entails certain risks.16 For example, because 

an LSI may have significantly more responsibility than a prime contractor

usually does, careful oversight is necessary to ensure that the

government’s interests are protected and that conflicts of interest are 

avoided. Providing the oversight that is needed, however, can be 

compromised when government expertise is lacking. Consequently, 

selecting, assigning responsibilities to, and managing an LSI could pose 

significant challenges for JPDO and FAA. 

FAA and JPDO 

Continue to Face a 

Number of Challenges 

in Moving Toward 

NextGen 

FAA Needs to Explore 

Whether It Has the 

Technical and Contract 

Management Expertise 

Necessary to Implement 

NextGen 

 16GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Future Combat System Risks Underscore the Importance of

Oversight, GAO-07-672T (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 27, 2007).

Page 17 GAO-07-784T 
Another approach that we have identified involves obtaining technical 

advice from federally funded research and development corporations to 

help the agency oversee and manage prime contractors. These nonprofit 

corporations are chartered to provide long-term technical advice to 

government agencies in accordance with various statutory and regulatory 

rules to ensure independence and prevent conflicts of interest. 

In November 2006, we recommended that FAA examine its strengths and 

weaknesses with regard to the technical expertise and contract 

management expertise that will be required to define, implement, and 

integrate the numerous complex programs inherent in the transition to 

NextGen.17 In response to our recommendation, FAA has contracted with 

the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) to determine the 

needed skill mix and the number of those skilled persons, such as 

technical personnel and program managers, that would be necessary to 

implement the new OEP and to compare those requirements with current 

FAA staff resources. According to FAA, the next step in this process would 

be to contract with NAPA or another organization for advice on how best 

to fill any skills gaps and how to proceed with management and oversight

of the implementation of NextGen. We believe this is a reasonable 

approach that should help FAA begin to address this challenge. 

While FAA works to acquire and deploy NextGen technologies, it will be 

equally important that FAA maintain many existing systems and, for those 

systems that FAA determines should be phased out, that the agency do so 

using a risk-based approach. The adequacy of FAA’s maintenance of 

existing systems was raised following a power outage and equipment 

failures in Southern California that caused hundreds of flight delays during 

the summer of 2006. Investigations by FAA and the Department of 

Transportation Inspector General into these incidents identified a number

of underlying issues, including the age and condition of equipment. 

Nationwide, the number of scheduled18 and unscheduled outages of air 

traffic control equipment and ancillary support systems has been 

increasing. Increases in the number of unscheduled outages indicate that 

systems are failing more frequently. It will be critical for FAA to monitor 

and address equipment outages to ensure the safety and efficiency of the 

Although FAA Is Now 

Focusing on NextGen, It 

Must Continue to Manage 

and Sustain the Current 

System 

 17GAO-07-25. 

18Scheduled outages occur for scheduled maintenance. 

Page 18 GAO-07-784T 
legacy systems, since they will be the core of the national airspace system 

for a number of years and, in some cases, will become part of NextGen. 

In our November report, we noted that JPDO had not yet developed a 

comprehensive estimate of the costs of NextGen. Since then, in its 

recently released 2006 Progress Report,19 JPDO reported some estimated 

costs for NextGen, including specifics on some early NextGen programs. 

JPDO believes the total federal cost for NextGen infrastructure through 

2025 will range between $15 billion and $22 billion. JPDO also reported 

that a preliminary estimate of the corresponding cost to system users, who 

will have to equip with the advanced avionics that are necessary to realize 

the full benefits of some NextGen technologies, produced a range of $14 

billion to $20 billion. JPDO noted that this range for avionics costs reflects 

uncertainty about equipage costs for individual aircraft, the number of 

very light jets that will operate in high-performance airspace, and the 

amount of out-of-service time required for installation. 

FAA, in its capital investment plan for fiscal years 2008-2012, includes 

estimated expenditures for 11 line items that are considered NextGen 

capital programs.20 The total 5-year estimated expenditures for these 

programs is $4.3 billion. In fiscal year 2008, only 6 of the line items are 

funded for a total of roughly $174 million; funding for the remaining 5 

programs would begin with the fiscal year 2009 budget. According to FAA, 

in addition to capital spending for NextGen, the agency will spend an 

estimated $300 million on NextGen-related research and development 

from fiscal years 2008 through 2012. The administration’s budget for fiscal

year 2008 for FAA includes a total of $17.8 million to support the activities 

of JPDO. 

FAA and JPDO Have 

Begun to Release Early 

Cost Estimates for 

NextGen, but Questions 

Remain Over Who Will 

Conduct Necessary 

Research and 

Development 

 19JPDO, Making the NextGen Vision a Reality: 2006 Progress Report to the Next 

Generation Air Transportation System Integrated Plan (Washington, D.C.; Mar. 14, 2007). 

20FAA has six capital investment programs that it considers transformational NextGen

programs slated to receive funding in fiscal year 2008: ADS-B nationwide implementation, 

System Wide Information Management (SWIM), NextGen Data Communications, NextGen 

Network Enabled Weather, National Airspace System Voice Switch, and NextGen 

Technology Demonstration. In addition, five other programs are slated to begin funding in

2009: NextGen System Development, NextGen High Altitude Trajectory Based Operations, 

NextGen High Density Airports, NextGen Networked Facilities, and NextGen Cross-Cutting 

Infrastructure. 

Page 19 GAO-07-784T 
While FAA and JPDO have begun to release estimates for FAA’s NextGen 

investment portfolio, questions remain over which entities will fund and 

conduct some of the necessary research, development, and demonstration 

projects that will be key to achieving certain NextGen capabilities. In the 

past, a significant portion of aeronautics research and development, 

including intermediate technology development, has been performed by 

NASA. To its credit, NASA plans to focus its research on the needs of 

NextGen. However, NASA is also moving toward a focus on fundamental

research and away from developmental work and demonstration projects, 

which could negatively impact NextGen if these efforts are not assumed 

by others. 

In addition, JPDO will need to conduct modeling for NextGen and may 

look to its partner agencies to provide modeling capabilities and support. 

For example, NASA’s NAS-wide modeling platform, the Airspace Concepts

Evaluation System (ACES),21 permits JPDO to, among other things, 

evaluate alternative research ideas and assess the performance of 

competing vendors. According to a JPDO official, this capability, which is 

critical to NextGen research, is eroding as JPDO’s investment simulation 

requirements are expanding. As part of its fundamental research mission, 

NASA intends to upgrade to ACES-X (a more sophisticated representation 

of the national airspace system), but not for another two years. Until then, 

JPDO’s investment modeling capability will be constrained unless the 

office or another partner agency can assume the modeling work. For 

example, the Department of Defense has detailed aircraft models and the 

Department of Homeland Security has detailed models of airport terminals 

that are relevant for JPDO’s simulations. This is an issue that needs to be

addressed in the short-term. 

JPDO faces the challenge of determining the nature and scope of the 

research and technology development necessary to begin the transition to 

NextGen, as well as identifying the entities that can conduct that research 

and development. According to officials at FAA and JPDO, they are 

currently studying these issues and trying to assess how much research 

and development FAA can assume. An FAA official recently testified that

the agency proposes to increase its research and development funding by 

 21ACES provides a detailed flight simulation environment and an open framework to

integrate the results of other simulations. This allows JPDO to test concepts well before

they have to be demonstrated with real hardware and people. This platform provides a 

basis for evaluating the timing of many agencies’ current budget requests and is a method

for comparing competitive ideas. 

Page 20 GAO-07-784T 
$280 million over the next 5 years. However, a draft report by an advisory 

committee to FAA stated that FAA would need at least $100 million 

annually in increased funding to assume NASA’s research and 

development work, and establishing the necessary infrastructure within 

FAA could delay the implementation of NextGen by 5 years.22 JPDO’s 

Integrated Work Plan will permit NASA and the other partner agencies to 

assess the research and development needs of NextGen, determine 

funding, and conduct the necessary initiatives. The Integrated Work Plan

is critical for the timely completion of research and testing of proposed 

NextGen systems and keeping NextGen on schedule. 

While basic organizational structure of JPDO has been in place for several

years (see app. 1), it has suffered from a lack of stable leadership. As 

JPDO begins its fourth year in operation, it is functioning under its third 

director and operated for much of 2006 under the stewardship of an acting

director. The current director of JPDO has held the position since August 

2006. The Next Generation Air Transportation System Institute (the 

Institute), created to facilitate the participation of nonfederal stakeholders 

in the NextGen effort, noted in its recent annual report that JPDO’s 

leadership turnover had made it a challenge for JPDO to move out more 

aggressively on many goals and objectives, as the office waited on a fulltime director. The Institute also stated that JPDO’s leadership turnover 

had limited the ability of the Institute’s executive committee23 to forge a 

stronger relationship with JPDO leadership and work jointly on strategic 

issues and challenges. These fundamental leadership issues are 

exacerbated by the lack of meetings of JPDO’s senior policy committee. 

Although JPDO has been functioning for just over 3 years, the senior 

policy committee has met only four times, and has not met at all as a

formal body since November 2005. 

JPDO’s Lack of Stable 

Leadership and the 

Authority to Enforce 

Accountability Threaten 

the Credibility of 

Organization 

 22Research, Engineering and Development Advisory Committee, Draft Report on 

Financing the Next Generation Air Transportation System (Washington, D.C.; April 

2006). 

23The Institute’s executive committee is a subset of the Institute’s governing body, the 

Institute Management Council. The Institute Management Council members represent

commercial airline operations, commercial pilots, air traffic control technology, air traffic 

controllers, airport operators, business aircraft operations, federal advisory committees, 

universities, and non-profit research organizations, small aircraft general aviation, 

helicopter operations, manufacturers of air vehicles and airborne/space-borne and ground

based equipment, and regional commercial airline operations. The JPDO director is an exofficio member and there are two at-large members. 

Page 21 GAO-07-784T 
In addition to the lack of stable leadership, JPDO’s management lacks the 

authority to hold much of JPDO’s staff accountable for their performance. 

As we noted in November 2006, JPDO has staffed the various levels of its 

organization with employees from its partner agencies and this practice 

helps to leverage partner agency human resources. However, a drawback 

of such staffing is a lack of real or perceived accountability to JPDO. 

According to JPDO officials, the JPDO workforce consists largely of parttime partner agency personnel who have been detailed to JPDO and parttime private sector volunteers. Only a few permanently-assigned FAA staff 

have their performance appraised by JPDO management, although the 

director does provide input to the performance appraisals of some of the 

managers detailed to JPDO from partner agencies. We have noted in 

previous studies that improved performance has been linked to 

accountability.24

Similarly, although the organizational structure of the Institute has been in 

place for 2 years, the Institute is currently led by an acting director while a 

search is being conducted for the Institute’s third executive director. Some 

Institute Management Council (IMC) members with whom we spoke 

believed that this turnover might be indicative of problems with the 

structure of the Institute and a need for greater clarity in roles and 

responsibilities. For example, these IMC members noted that there were 

stresses placed on the Institute’s executive director resulting from the 

need to meet the competing demands of the IMC, the IMC executive 

committee, and JPDO management. Other IMC members attributed the 

stresses on the executive director to the lack of clarity in the Institute’s 

role. These members noted that while the Institute is clearly charged with 

selecting private sector participants for JPDO’s work groups, the 

Institute’s role of conducting research for the JPDO could be viewed as 

overlapping with other advisory organizations such as RTCA.25 Two IMC 

members believed that the Institute’s award of only two research contracts 

in two years illustrates that the Institute is not yet functioning as intended. 

Some IMC members also pointed out that a formal mechanism for 

 24GAO, Air Traffic Control Modernization: Status of the Current Program and Planning

for the Next Generation Air Transportation System, GAO-06-653T (Washington, D.C.: 

June 21, 2006) 

25Organized in 1935 and once called the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics, 

RTCA is today known by its acronym. RTCA is a private, not-for-profit corporation that 

develops consensus-based performance standards for ATC systems. RTCA serves as a 

federal advisory committee, and its recommendations are the basis for a number of FAA’s 

policy, program, and regulatory decisions. 

Page 22 GAO-07-784T 
providing industry input to JPDO on NextGen concepts and issues has not 

yet been fully established, even though this is one of the missions of the 

Institute. Although the Institute is currently seeking a new executive 

director, some IMC members felt that the IMC would do better to first try 

and gain a better understanding of the factors that have led to the turnover 

in the executive director position. 

Among the central assumptions of the NextGen system is a concept of 

operations that envisions an increased reliance on automation, which 

dramatically changes the roles and responsibilities of both the air traffic 

controllers and the pilots. In such an automated environment some of the 

controller’s responsibilities will shift from air traffic control to air traffic 

management and pilots will take on a greater share of the responsibility 

for maintaining safe separation and other tasks currently performed by 

controllers. These changes in roles and responsibilities raise significant 

human factors issues for the safety and efficiency of the national airspace 

system. 

Although JPDO has begun to model how shifts in air traffic controllers’ 

workloads would affect their performance, it has not yet begun to model 

the effect of how this shift in workload to pilots would affect pilot 

performance. According to a JPDO official, modeling the effect of changes 

in pilot workload has not yet begun because JPDO has not yet identified a

suitable model to incorporate into its suite of modeling tools. According to

a JPDO official, the evolving roles of pilots and controllers is the NextGen

initiative’s most important human factors issue, but will be difficult to 

research because data on pilot behavior are not readily available for use in 

creating models. In addition to the study of changing roles, JPDO has not 

yet studied the training implications of various systems or solutions 

proposed for NextGen. For example, JPDO officials said they will need to 

study the extent to which new air traffic controllers will have to be trained 

to operate both the old and the new equipment as the concept of 

operations and enterprise architecture mature. 

Some stakeholders, such as current air traffic controllers and technicians, 

will play critical roles in NextGen, and their involvement in planning for 

and deploying the new technology will be important to the success of 

NextGen. In November 2006, we reported that active air traffic controllers 

were not involved in the NextGen planning effort and recommended that

JPDO determine whether any other key stakeholders and expertise were 

not represented on its integrated product teams, divisions, or elsewhere 

Human Factors Research 

Is Critical to Some 

Fundamental NextGen 

Capabilities 

JPDO Faces A Continuing 

Challenge in Ensuring the 

Involvement of All Key 

Stakeholders 

Page 23 GAO-07-784T 
within the office. Since then, the head of the controllers’ union has taken a 

seat on the IMC. However, no active controllers are yet participating at the

more detailed group planning level. Also, aviation technicians do not 

participate in NextGen efforts. Input from current air traffic controllers 

who have recent experience controlling aircraft and current technicians 

who will maintain NextGen equipment is important when considering 

human factors and safety issues. Our work on past air traffic control 

modernization projects has shown that a lack of stakeholder or expert 

involvement early and throughout a project can lead to costly increases 

and delays. 

In addition, we found that some private sector stakeholders have 

expressed concerns that participation in the Institute might either 

preclude bidding on future NextGen acquisitions or pose organizational 

conflicts of interest. FAA’s acquisition process, generally, precludes bids 

from organizations that have participated in, materially influenced, or had 

prior knowledge of the requirements for an acquisition. The Institute was 

aware of this concern and attempted to address it through an amendment 

to its governing document that strengthened the language protecting 

participants from organizational conflicts of interest for participation in 

the NextGen initiative. However, while the amendment language currently 

operates to protect stakeholders, the language has never been tested or 

challenged. Thus, it is unclear at this time whether any stakeholder 

participation is being chilled by conflict of interest concerns. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be pleased to respond 

to any questions from you or other Members of the Subcommittee. 

For further information on this testimony, please contact Dr. Gerald L. 

Dillingham at (202) 512-2834 or dillinghamg@gao.gov. Individuals making 

key contributions to this statement include Kevin Egan, Jessica Evans, 

Colin Fallon, Ed Menoche, Faye Morrison, Taylor Reeves, and Richard 

Scott. 

GAO Contacts and 

Staff 

Acknowledgment 

Page 24 GAO-07-784T 
Page 25 GAO-07-784T 

Appendix I: JPDO’s Organizational Structure 

Facilitates Collaboration, but Continues to 

Evolve 

In November 2006, we reported that the Joint Planning and Development 

Office’s (JPDO) organizational structure incorporated some of the 

practices that we have found to be effective for federal interagency 

collaborations—an important point given how critical such collaboration 

is to the success of JPDO’s mission. For example, the JPDO partner 

agencies have worked together to develop key strategies for the Next 

Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) and JPDO has leveraged

its partner agency resources by staffing various levels of its organization 

with partner agency employees. Also, our work has shown that involving 

stakeholders can, among other things, increase their support for a 

collaborative effort. 

Vision 100 includes requirements for JPDO to coordinate and consult with 

its partner agencies, private sector experts, and the public. JPDO’s 

approach has been to establish an organizational structure that involves 

federal and nonfederal stakeholders throughout the organization. This 

structure includes a federal interagency senior policy committee. JPDO’s 

senior policy committee is headed by the Secretary of Transportation (as 

required in Vision 100) and includes senior-level officials from JPDO’s 

partner agencies. The JPDO board is an adjunct to the senior policy 

committee and is composed of at least one senior representative from 

each of the partner agencies. 

The Next Generation Air Transportation System Institute (the Institute) 

was created by an agreement between the National Center for Advanced

Technologies1

 and the Federal Aviation Administration to meet Vision 

100’s requirement that JPDO coordinate and consult with the public. The 

Institute incorporates the expertise and views of stakeholders from private 

industry, state and local governments, and academia. In addition, the 

Institute arranges for the participation of nonfederal stakeholders in 

JPDO’s planning efforts, reviews and selects private sector organizations 

to conduct research studies needed by JPDO, and holds public meetings to

obtain the views of the aviation community. The Institute held its first 

public meeting in March 2006 and plans to hold another public meeting in

May 2007. The Institute is directed by an Institute Management Council 

(IMC), which consists of top officials and representatives from the 

aviation community. The IMC oversees the policy, recommendations, and 

products of the Institute and provides a means for advancing consensus 

 1

The National Center for Advanced Technologies is a nonprofit unit established by the

Aerospace Industries Association. 
positions on critical NextGen issues. An executive committee, consisting 

of the IMC’s two co-chairs and three members selected by them, conducts 

business on behalf of the IMC. The Institute is managed on a day-to-day

basis by an executive director, who reports to the IMC and the executive 

committee, and works closely with JPDO management. 

Recently, JPDO announced they are in the process of implementing 

several structural and operational changes to improve the efficiency of the 

organization (see fig. 3). JPDO’s structure used to include eight integrated

product teams (IPT), which was where the federal and nonfederal experts 

came together to plan for and coordinate the development of capabilities 

for NextGen. The eight IPTs were linked to eight key strategies that JPDO 

developed early on for guiding its NextGen planning work. The IPTs were 

headed by representatives of JPDO’s partner agencies and include more 

than 200 nonfederal stakeholders from over 100 organizations. 

JPDO recently converted each IPT into a “working group” with the same 

participants as the former IPT, but with each working group led by a joint

government and industry steering committee. These steering committees 

will oversee the creation of small, ad hoc subgroups that will be tasked 

with short-term projects exploring specific issues and delivering discrete 

work products. Under this arrangement, working group members will be

free of obligations to the group when not engaged in a specific project. 

According to JPDO officials, they believe the working groups will be more 

efficient and output- or product-focused than the former IPTs. JPDO 

officials noted that they are also in the process of staffing a new, ninth 

working group to address avionics issues. 

Page 26 GAO-07-784T 
Figure 3: JPDO New Organizational Chart

NGATS Institute JPDO

Director/Deputy

Regulatory Council

Environmental

Safety

Security

DOD

Global

ATO

Source: JPDO.

Systems and

Engineering

Analysis 

Division

Enterprise

Architecture and

Engineering 

Division

Policy

Division

Portfolio

Management 

Division

Working

Groups

Partnership

Management

Division

Business 

Management 

Division

Integration Council

Governance Advisors Inter-Agency Coordination

Senior Policy

Committee

·

Board of 

Directors

·

REDAC Executive

Committee

·

Institute Management

Council

·

Joint Architecture

and Engineering

Board

·

Note: There are nine working groups covering aircraft, air navigation services, airports, environment,

global harmonization, net-centric operations, safety, security, and weather. 

We believe that these changes could help address concerns that we have

heard from some stakeholders about the productivity of some IPTs and 

the pace of the planning effort at JPDO. However, it will be important to 

monitor these changes to ensure that the participation of stakeholders is 

neither decreased nor adversely affected. Maintaining communications 

within and among work groups could increase in importance if, as work 

group members focus on specific projects, they become less involved in

the overall collaborative planning effort. The effectiveness of the changes 

to JPDO’s organizational structure will need to continue to be evaluated 

over time. Currently, we have on-going study examining the views and 

Page 27 GAO-07-784T 
concerns of JPDO’s federal and nonfederal stakeholders about the office 

and its performance. We expect to issue a report on our findings later this

year. 

Page 28 GAO-07-784T (540151) 
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