What to know about the air traffic control overhaul and the company FAA hired to manage it

[CousinIT]

https://apnews.com/article/faa-duffy-peraton-aviation-air-traffic-control-5541dd9071605c0e0a13ddcfd29046ce

The government picked a company with little experience working with the Federal Aviation Administration called Peraton to oversee the roughly $31.5 billion overhaul of the outdated air traffic control system.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Thursday evening that Peraton was chosen in the hope that its innovative approach will make it possible to complete the upgrades within the next three years before the end of President Donald Trump’s term in office ends. Peraton was chosen over Parsons Corp., which does have extensive experience with FAA contracts.

“Working together, we are going to build on the incredible progress we’ve already made and deliver a state-of-the-art air traffic control system that the American traveling public — and our hard-working air traffic controllers — deserve,” Duffy said in the announcement.

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The company is owned by Veritas Capital private equity firm, so it doesn’t have shareholders. Its board of advisers is full of an assortment of former military and intelligence officials. A Peraton spokesman said the company was too busy getting started on the contract to do any interviews Friday, but its CEO Steve Schorer promised in a statement that his team is committed to completing this project.

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The company’s political action committee donated a quarter-million dollars to politicians last year with a little over half of that going to Republicans, according to www.opensecrets.org.