FAA Computer Systems

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has lagged in making its computer systems ready for the year 2000. At its present rate, FAA will not make it in time. The agency has been severely behind schedule in completing basic awareness activities, a critical first phase in an effective Year 2000 program. For example, FAA appointed its initial program manager for Year 2000 issues only six months ago, and its overall Year 2000 strategy is not yet final. FAA also does not know the extent of its Year 2000 problem because it has not completed most of the key activities in the assessment phase, the second critical phase in an effective Year 2000 program. The potential serious consequences include degraded safety, grounded or delayed flights, higher airline costs, and customer inconvenience. Delays in completing awareness and assessment activities also leave FAA little time for critical renovation, validation, and implementation efforts--the final three phases in an effective Year 2000 program. With two years left, FAA is quickly running out of time, making contingency planning for continuity of operations even more critical. FAA estimates that the entire program will cost $246 million, although the agency lacks the information it needs to develop reliable cost estimates. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: Year 2000 Computing Crisis: FAA Must Act Quickly to Prevent Systems Failures, by Joel C. Willemssen, Director of Civil Agencies Information Systems Issues, before the Subcommittee on Technology, House Committee on Science, and the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology, House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. GAO/T-AIMD-98-63, Feb. 4 (14 pages).

GAO noted that: (1) FAA's progress in making its systems ready for the year 2000 has been too slow; (2) at its current pace, it will not make it in time; (3) the agency has been severely behind schedule in completing basic awareness activities, a critical first phase in an effective year 2000 program; (4) for example, FAA appointed its initial program manager with responsibility for the year 2000 only 6 months ago, and its overall year 2000 strategy is not yet final; (5) FAA also does not know the extent of its year 2000 problem because it has not completed most key assessment phase activities, the second critical phase in an effective year 2000 program; (6) it has yet to analyze the impact of systems' not being year 2000 date compliant, inventory and assess all of its systems for date dependencies, develop plans for addressing identified date dependencies, or develop plans for continuing operations in case systems are not corrected in time; (7) FAA currently estimates it will complete its assessment activities by the end of January 1998; (8) until these activities are completed, FAA cannot know the extent to which it can trust its systems to operate safely after 1999; (9) the potential serious consequences include degraded safety, grounded or delayed flights, increased airline costs, and customer inconvenience; (10) delays in completing awareness and assessment activities also leave FAA little time for critical renovation, validation, and implementation activities--the final three phases in an effective year 2000 program; (11) with 2 years left, FAA is quickly running out of time, making contingency planning for continuity of operations even more critical; (12) FAA's inventory and assessment actions will define the scope and magnitude of its year 2000 problem; since they are incomplete, FAA lacks the information it needs to develop reliable year 2000 cost estimates; and (13) FAA's year 2000 project manager currently estimates that the entire program will cost $246 million based on early estimates from managers throughout the agency.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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