American air traffic controllers still use floppy discs to load pilot reports and alerts into their consoles. The Federal Aviation Administration now plans to replace the decades-old technology across 435 air traffic control facilities by the end of 2028.

The programme will retire four systems that have operated for more than 40 years, replacing them with modern digital systems intended to give controllers faster access to essential information. It will also replace manual processes and paper notes.

FAA administrator Bryan Bedford said the new system would allow controllers to share critical information immediately, including alerts, restricted airspace details and reports from pilots. The practical change is therefore more than the retirement of an obsolete storage format: it is a move away from manually transferring information towards sharing it directly.

The initial locations include airports at Atlantic City, Nashville and Rochester, alongside data-processing centres in Atlanta and Salt Lake City. The deadline for completing the transition throughout the FAA’s 435 facilities remains a target, rather than a completed improvement.

The age of American air traffic control technology attracted renewed public attention after the collision between a passenger aircraft and a helicopter in Washington in 2025. Officials also highlighted controllers’ continued use of paper strips to track flights and computers that still ran Windows 95.

Transport Secretary Sean Duffy presented the planned retirement of floppy discs as a move into 21st-century technology, saying the United States deserved the best air traffic control system.

Other public infrastructure illustrates how long the format can outlive its everyday usefulness. San Francisco has begun a ten-year, $212 million programme to replace floppy-disc-based computers managing its light rail network. Japan abolished rules requiring floppy discs for various administrative procedures only in 2024, 13 years after domestic production ended.

For the FAA, the promised benefit is quicker access to operational information. Delivering that benefit means replacing the working processes around the discs as well as the hardware that reads them.