FAA's System On-Track for a Complete Transition in Spring 2026

The Federal Aviation Administration has launched phase one of its new Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) system, putting aviation on track for a complete transition from the old tech in late Spring of 2026. This change has long been requested by the pilot community, especially following multiple large-scale failures.

“We built a brand-new NOTAM service from the ground up in record time,” said FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford. “It is resilient, user-friendly, and scalable, and will significantly improve airspace safety and efficiency.

The announcement is a major step forward for an effort that took the spotlight after a 2023 nationwide outage grounded more than 11,000 flights. That incident, traced to a contractor deleting critical files, was the first national ground stop since 2001. The FAA now says the new system will be faster, more reliable, and easier for pilots and dispatchers to use.

The new NMS will eventually replace both the Federal NOTAM System and the U.S. NOTAM System, which date back to the 1980s. It is cloud-based, scalable, and built for near-real-time data exchange. The system also claims to bring a cleaner, modern interface to make notices easier to interpret, solving an ongoing (and justified) complaint from pilots who say critical alerts often get buried in outdated text formats.

During this first phase, which officially kicked off on September 29, the FAA is testing the NMS with a select group of early adopters while running it alongside the legacy systems. The agency plans to retire the U.S. NOTAM System by February 2026 and the Federal NOTAM System by late spring, at which point more than 12,000 users will fully migrate to the new platform.

“This is the promises made, promises kept administration,” added US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. “We are bringing our aviation system into the 21st century at lightning speed to enhance safety in our skies.”

FMI: www.faa.gov