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FAA to Retire Floppy Disks in Air Traffic Control Overhaul

The FAA will replace 1980s-era, floppy-disk-driven display systems with a new platform called E-IDS at 435 facilities by the end of 2028.

Air traffic controllers working at radar and information display screens in a control facility, with a floppy disk in the foreground.
Image: Ars Technica
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The Federal Aviation Administration says it will stop relying on floppy disks in the US air traffic control system. The agency announced the Enterprise Information Display System (E-IDS), which will be installed at 435 facilities and replace several information display systems that date back to the 1980s.

The FAA calls the move part of a "historic modernization." E-IDS is meant to give controllers faster access to weather data, pilot reports (PIREPs) and Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs), which the agency names as two of its top safety concerns. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the system lets controllers "instantly share critical flight alerts, restricted airspace schedules and pilot reports" across the National Airspace System.

Which systems are being replaced

E-IDS will take over from IDS-4, ACE-IDS, NIDS and ERIDS. IDS-4 runs on MS-DOS and has been in constant use since the early 1990s, according to a 2018 vendor press release. It appears to run on desktop PCs with 3.5-inch floppy drives.

A September 2026 Government Accountability Office report criticized the legacy setup, saying it relies on obsolete technology and 1980s interfaces, inefficient data organization and manual updates. The systems are "cumbersome for controllers to search, retrieve, and display information," the GAO said. An April 2026 Department of Transportation report said E-IDS will pull the data into a single view.

Rollout schedule

The first sites to receive E-IDS are Atlantic City International Airport, Nashville International Airport, Greater Rochester International Airport, and data processing hubs in Atlanta and Salt Lake City. Upgrading every facility will take roughly a year per phase of work, and the FAA plans to finish all 435 sites by the end of 2028.

The project has been in the works for more than six years. The FAA awarded Leidos a contract in August 2020 to design and develop E-IDS as part of the NextGen modernization program, which dates to 2008. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy credited President Trump for the upgrade, although officials from both the Biden and Trump administrations shepherded the plan.

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Tags:faafloppy diskse-idsair traffic controlleidosnextgen

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