Federal Aviation Admistration: Key Provisions in the 2024 Reauthorization Act and Related GAO Work
Fast Facts
The U.S. national airspace system is the busiest and most complex in the world, with over 45,000 flights per day. The Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2024 directs FAA on how the agency is to ensure its safety and efficiency.
We testified on key areas of this act, our open recommendations to FAA, and our ongoing work in response to several of the act's mandates. We've made recommendations on several related FAA activities, including aviation safety issues and air traffic control modernization.
Implementing our open recommendations will help FAA fulfill its mission to ensure the safety and efficiency of U.S. air travel.
Highlights
What GAO Found
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization Act of 2024 (the Act) communicates congressional direction for how FAA should carry out aspects of its mission and helps ensure the safety and efficiency of the U.S. airspace system. The Act is broad and contains provisions on areas including FAA's organizational structure, controller staffing and aviation workforce, modernizing the national airspace system (NAS), and supporting safety and efficiency for both conventional users and new entrants such as drones.
The Act contains 36 provisions for GAO to study various issues related to FAA and the NAS. In addition, the Act requires FAA to implement various GAO recommendations. GAO has 50 open recommendations to FAA that address, for example:
- Air traffic control modernization delays and challenges and urgent actions needed to address aging legacy IT systems.
- Certifying small aircraft and aviation products, better preventing and detecting fraud and abuse in aircraft registration, and sharing information with law enforcement on persons who intentionally point lasers at aircraft.
- Challenges related to skill gaps and assessing training in critical competencies to ensure FAA's aviation workforce can help it prepare for changes in technology.
- Integrating new operations—such as drones and commercial space vehicles—into the NAS, while ensuring safety and efficiency.
GAO maintains that implementing these recommendations will better position FAA to address the widespread challenges it faces in modernizing the NAS and fulfilling its commitment to ensuring that the U.S. has the safest, most efficient airspace system in the world.
Why GAO Did This Study
With over 45,000 flights daily, the U.S. national airspace system is the busiest and most complex in the world. FAA is responsible for regulating and overseeing civil aviation within the U.S. Its primary mission is to ensure the safety and efficiency of air transportation, including air traffic control, aircraft certification, and certain airport operations.
The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 was signed into law on May 16, 2024, and authorizes FAA activities through fiscal year 2028. Congress directed FAA to take various actions to maintain and improve the safety and efficiency of air transportation while accommodating new entrants such as drones and commercial space vehicles.
This testimony provides an overview of key areas of the Act, GAO's open recommendations to FAA in these areas, and the work GAO is doing in response to several provisions in the Act. This statement draws from several GAO reports completed since fiscal year 2020.
Recommendations
There are currently 50 open GAO recommendations to FAA from reports that GAO has issued since 2020. These recommendations cut across several FAA activities addressed by the Act including modernization of the NAS, aviation safety, FAA's workforce, and integrating new entrants, such as drones, into the NAS. In most cases, FAA concurred with GAO's recommendations and is taking actions to address them.