Is Your Airport Off Paper Yet?

The map: paper vs. pixels

Check your airport

All 89 airports

Dates marked 2023 plan are the airport's slot in the FAA's last published schedule (August 2023, via the DOT Inspector General) — sequencing, not commitments. Washington National jumped its slot by two and a half years; Boston's has come and gone. Where a live airport shows no date, the FAA never published one: it announces go-lives selectively, so this column is built from its audit trail and press coverage.

What's actually changing

In July 2025, Congress handed the FAA $12.5 billion to modernize air traffic control — new fiber to replace 1970s copper phone lines, new radios, new radar, and the end of paper flight strips. Everyone involved calls it a down payment: the industry's Modern Skies Coalition — 66 aviation groups — asked Congress for another $20 billion in July 2026. That part hasn't been appropriated.

The build is split among a handful of companies. Peraton is the integrator running the overall program — its own contract is capped at $1.5 billion, not the "$12.5 billion" some headlines claimed. L3Harris is rebuilding the network and passed the halfway mark in May 2026. RTX and Indra are replacing up to 612 radars by June 2028. And Leidos builds the piece this page tracks: TFDM, the system that replaces paper strips.

What a tower actually gets

Today, a controller works your flight on a printed strip, marks it in pencil, and walks it to the next position. TFDM replaces that with electronic strips on touchscreens — shared instantly between controllers, traffic managers, and airline ops. At the biggest airports it adds surface metering: instead of everyone pushing back and idling in a taxi queue, the system holds you at the gate and releases you into a moving line. Less burned fuel, more honest departure times.

The pace, honestly

Eighteen towers went digital in the first 44 months — about five per year. The current promise is a different order of magnitude: Leidos says another dozen airports by the end of 2026, and the FAA says all 89 by 2028 — roughly a six-fold acceleration that started showing up in 2026, with Washington National jumping a 2028 slot to go live in February. Worth holding next to that: the DOT Inspector General's 2024 audit found the program's first decade cut its scope from 89 towers to 49 while costs rose, and estimated completion in 2030 — for the smaller plan. The 2025 money put all 89 back on the board. This tracker exists to show which trajectory is real, one airport at a time.

The skeptics' case

Congress has seen this movie: NextGen ran two decades, $14 billion through 2022, and delivered about 16% of its promised benefits by the government's own accounting. At the December 2025 oversight hearings, Sen. Tammy Duckworth called the three-year timeline "setting the integrator up to fail," and Rep. Troy Nehls asked what guardrails would keep this from becoming "another NextGen boondoggle." Even the sunny numbers deserve attribution: the claim that DCA deployed "45% faster than the typical cycle" traces to a single Leidos press release, and the FAA's own transparency site generates its per-airport answers with AI and was still calling Austin "planned" two weeks after the ribbon was cut. We use it as a pointer, and verify against the audit trail and press.

Quick answers

Changelog

1. Oct 28, 2026 Atlanta (ATL) becomes the 26th airport on electronic strips, per the FAA — about six months after its 2023-plan slot. We can now name 24 of the 26; the FAA hasn't publicly named the 22nd or the 24th.
2. Oct 15, 2026 Sacramento (SMF) becomes the 25th — another tower cut from the program in 2022 and restored in 2025.
3. Oct 1, 2026 Denver (DEN), a United hub, makes the switch the week of September 28 and becomes the 23rd airport off paper — right on its 2023-plan slot.
4. Sep 28, 2026 Sen. Eric Schmitt introduces the Modern Skies Act — $30B, $10B each for ATC technology, airport infrastructure such as towers, and a terminal pilot program. Introduced only; nothing appropriated yet.
5. Sep 22, 2026 Transportation Secretary Duffy asks Congress for another $30B — $10B each for software and telecom, airports, and towers. Like the coalition's $20B ask, not yet appropriated.
6. Sep 16, 2026 The FAA's own progress sheet now counts 22 of 89 towers on electronic strips — two more than the 20 we can name, so two cutovers haven't been publicly announced yet. Copper-to-fiber conversion reaches 65%.
7. Aug 27, 2026 Louisville (SDF) becomes the 21st airport to drop paper strips, per the FAA.
8. Aug 19, 2026 Dayton (DAY) becomes the 20th — a tower cut from the program in 2022 and restored in 2025.
9. Jul 30, 2026 Fort Lauderdale (FLL) becomes the 19th tower off paper, per the FAA — an announcement we only caught in November.
10. Jul 27, 2026 Tracker first published — 18 airports live, 71 still on paper.
11. Jul 15, 2026 The Modern Skies Coalition — 66 aviation groups — asks Congress for another $20B. Not yet appropriated.
12. Jul 14, 2026 Austin (AUS) becomes the 18th airport to drop paper strips.
13. Jun 22, 2026 FAA awards Air Space Intelligence $875M over 12 years to rebuild the command center's traffic-flow software (FMDS/SMART), beating Palantir and Thales.
14. May 22, 2026 FAA launches modernskies.faa.gov — per-airport modernization status, searchable by code, updated monthly.
15. May 11, 2026 Copper-to-fiber conversion passes the halfway mark, per L3Harris.
16. Apr 24, 2026 Chicago Midway (MDW) reported live — the 17th airport, about nine months behind its 2023-plan slot.
17. Feb 19, 2026 Washington National (DCA) marked live by Transportation Secretary Duffy — it jumped the queue from a July 2028 slot.
18. Feb 10, 2026 FAA tells Congress the Peraton integrator contract is worth $1.5B — not the '$12.5B' many headlines claimed.
19. Jan 6, 2026 Radar replacement contracts go to RTX and Indra: up to 612 radars by June 2028.
20. Dec 4, 2025 Peraton named prime integrator for the new ATC system, beating a joint Parsons/IBM bid.
21. Jul 4, 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill signs $12.5B for ATC modernization — and the FAA's public target swings back to ~90 airports, folding the 40 towers cut in 2022 back into the goal.
22. Jul 17, 2024 DOT Inspector General documents the program's rough first decade: scope cut 89→49 towers, cost up $795M→$950M, first site nearly three years late.
23. Oct 24, 2022 Cleveland (CLE) becomes the first tower in the country on electronic strips.

How this page is maintained: airport statuses are verified against the FAA's Modern Skies dashboard, the DOT Inspector General's TFDM audit, and press coverage of each go-live. Every airport in the underlying dataset cites at least one source, and dates appear only where a source supports them. Updated monthly, or when an airport goes live.