Mounting congestion in the 1990s and predictions of even greater demand for aviation services motivated the U.S. Congress to pass the Vision 100—Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act of 2003. The act established the Joint Planning and Development Office to create a unified vision of what the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS) should deliver for the next generation and beyond.

Since then, the FAA has developed and deployed the advanced NextGen infrastructure, enabling technologies, and capabilities in communications, navigation, surveillance, automation, and information management. These changes and other improvements, along with increased equipage and pilot use of deployed capabilities, are yielding measurable benefits and moving us closer to our goal of a new way of managing air traffic called Trajectory Based Operations.

Collaboration

NextGen affects many stakeholders, such as the government, the aviation community, and public. The FAA collaborates with multiple partners to reach success, including the NextGen Advisory Committee, International Civil Aviation Organization, other federal agencies, and labor unions.

Research and Development

Concepts, systems, and capabilities must be researched, developed, tested, evaluated, and proven before they can be implemented. The FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center for Advanced Aerospace in Atlantic City, NJ, is the nation’s premier federal aviation laboratory for advancing the NAS and sustaining safe and efficient operations. The FAA established the Florida NextGen Test Bed to generate industry-driven concepts to advance NAS modernization. A third NextGen test facility is located in the NASA/FAA North Texas Research Station.

Continuous Modernization

The NAS is regarded as the global gold standard of air transportation systems. That level of excellence is attained through continuous innovation and ceaselessly striving to make a safe system even safer. NextGen continues to evolve the NAS into a modern, efficient, and flexible aerospace system that fully responds to the changing needs of businesses and customers in the 21st century.

Go here to read a more detailed account of NextGen’s history.

Major Milestones

The NextGen operational transformation stems from investment, commitment, and collaboration across the FAA and throughout the aviation community, as well as support from Congress. This table includes a sampling of NextGen milestones. View a more comprehensive list of NextGen milestones and accomplishments here.

Type	Date	Milestone
	December 12, 2003	Congressional Congress passed the Vision 100 - Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act, which established the Joint Planning Development Office to manage work related to the Next Generation Air Transportation System.
	December 15, 2004	FAA The Department of Transportation unveiled the Integrated Plan for the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), which laid out goals, objectives, and requirements necessary to create NextGen.
	June 13, 2007	FAA The Joint Planning Development Office published The Concept of Operations for the Next Generation Air Transportation System, which identified key research and policy issues to resolve to achieve national air transportation goals. This document was developed with DOT, NASA, US Air Force Department of Defense, Department of Commerce, Department of Homeland Security, and The White House Office of Science and Technology.
	November 18, 2008	Congressional President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13479, Transformation of the National Air Transportation System, which reiterated the importance of establishing NextGen and mandated the Secretary of Transportation to establish a NextGen support staff.
	December 17, 2009	FAA Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast operations for the Gulf of America began at Houston en route center.
	September 1, 2010	Industry The Department of Transportation established the NextGen Advisory Committee as a federal body to provide advice on policy-level issues facing the aviation community in implementing NextGen. The NAC consists of more than 30 stakeholders from commercial, general aviation, manufacturers, and other key constituents.
	2011	FAA The FAA published the "NextGen Mid-Term Concept of Operations for the National Airspace System." The report identified transformational concepts necessary to achieve NextGen goals and objectives, such as precision navigation and network-enabled information access. FAA used this as the framework to coordinate NextGen plans and policies with the aviation community.
	February 14, 2012	Congressional President Barack Obama signed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, a 4-year reauthorization bill. The law established deadlines for adopting existing NextGen navigation and surveillance technology and mandated the development of Performance Based Navigation procedures at the nation's 35 busiest airports by 2015.
	November 7, 2013	FAA The FAA released its first roadmap outlining efforts needed to safely integrate unmanned aircraft systems into the nation's airspace.
	2014	FAA The JPDO was disbanded, and the FAA assumed full responsibility for the NextGen program.
	October 17, 2014	Industry The FAA delivered to Congress the NextGen Priorities Joint Implementation Plan, which captures a set of activities in five priority focus areas that the FAA and the aviation community were collectively committed to accomplishing on a rolling 3-year outlook. Ultimately, this agreement resulted in more than 180 FAA and industry implementation accomplishments.
	2014	FAA The Space Data Integrator program began as the first of several new capabilities that the FAA is developing to efficiently integrate commercial space vehicles into the National Airspace System.
	2014	FAA The FAA completed the deployment of more than 700 ADS-B ground stations, finishing the waterfall for this program.
	2015	FAA The FAA announced the completion of the En Route Automation Modernization computer automation system at all 20 en route centers in the contiguous United States. ERAM is a foundational automation system on which NextGen capabilities were built.
	2015	FAA The System Wide Information Management (SWIM) program established a common infrastructure and connections at all en route centers. This change enables seamless sharing of relevant aviation data between different systems and users within the National Airspace System.
	January 1, 2016	FAA The FAA Cybersecurity Test Facility opens at the Technical Center for evaluation and research services in a research and development environment.
	December 2016	FAA The FAA completed the deployment of Data Communications tower service to 55 airports ahead of schedule and within budget. This service lets controllers send departure clearances digitally to pilots, saving time compared to traditional voice exchanges.
	October 7, 2019	FAA Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast became operational at air traffic control facilities across the country within budget and before the Jan. 1, 2020, mandate. Aircraft position, speed, and direction information for equipped aircraft are sent once per second instead of every five to 12 seconds with radar.
	2019	Industry The FAA, NASA, and industry partners completed the first phase of the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) traffic management pilot program demonstrations. This phase included flight demonstrations with live UAS flights combined with simulated UAS traffic management operations at three test sites.
	2020	Industry Aircraft operators met the ADS-B mandate, which required them to equip their aircraft with an ADS-B Out transmitter and a compatible GPS position source.
	2020	FAA Integrated National Airspace System automation system modeling and anomaly detection was implemented. The system detects potential safety issues or operational irregularities within the airspace.
	2020	The United States declared a national health emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic, and the FAA limited the NextGen program team’s access to operational facilities to reduce the spread of the virus. As a result, NextGen implementations at facilities slowed over the next few years, but progress continued with technology development, especially on modernizing operational data and automation and integrating new entrants into operations.
	May 27, 2021	FAA The SWIM Industry FAA Team portal evolved from the existing SWIM Cloud Distribution Service and was deployed.
	July 2021	FAA Los Angeles International Airport was approved for Established on Required Navigation Performance operations.
	Apr–Sep 2021	FAA NASA collaborated with the FAA and industry to develop and demonstrate Terminal Flight Data Manager technology during the Airspace Technology Demonstration-2 field demonstrations, which led to NASA transferring Integrated Arrival, Departure, and Surface technology to the FAA.
	2021	FAA Cockpit Display of Traffic Information-Assisted Visual Separation operations started after American Airlines and ACSS partnered to install Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast In avionics on the airline’s Airbus 321 aircraft.
	2021	FAA The FAA completed the nationwide rollout of the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System , replacing the legacy Automated Radar Terminal System and incorporating Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast as a source.
	2022	FAA The Minneapolis en route center achieved initial operating capability for Data Communications' initial en route services, and centers in Oakland and Miami began using the technology 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
	2022	FAA After completing the South-Central Florida Metroplex project, the FAA finished the last of 11 projects in the Metroplex program.
	2022	FAA Initial Interval Management operations using Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast technology began in Albuquerque en route center’s airspace.
	2022	FAA Terminal Flight Data Manager Build 1 expanded, including electronic flight strip capabilities and required interfaces, enabling five locations to access improved surface traffic management decision support technology.
	2023	FAA Pilots flying from Raleigh, NC, to Seattle, WA, accepted clearances from tower and en route controllers during the nearly 5-hour trip, marking the first time Data Communications was used for a coast-to-coast flight.
	2023	FAA Data Communications (Data Comm) en route services deployed to Atlanta, Denver, Houston, Salt Lake City, and Seattle en route centers, joining Chicago, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Miami, Minneapolis, Oakland, and Washington centers with this capability. The FAA also enabled the first increment of full Data Comm en route services for these 12 operational facilities.