The Terminal Flight Data Manager (TFDM) is a tower-based system that improves surface flight traffic management and efficiency. TFDM digitizes current operations that use paper flight strips and shares electronic data among controllers, air traffic managers, aircraft operators, and airports. It enables controllers to coordinate arrivals and departures and manage surface traffic flow between gates and runways more efficiently.
Air Traffic Management
Air traffic control systems, secure by design
Learning from the past.
Building for the future.
For more than 60 years, Leidos has advanced U.S. air traffic control (ATC) operations by designing, building, and maintaining modernized platforms in the National Airspace System (NAS). Our expertise supports the safe travel of more than four million passengers every day.
That commitment extends worldwide. Through our SkyLineTM Air Traffic Management system, we help countries across four continents strengthen safety, improve efficiency, and optimize ATC performance.
Featured
Leidos Common Automation Platform
Leidos brings unmatched operational insight, essential to reimagining the NAS to enhance safety, improve efficiency, and deliver seamless operations across all phases of air traffic control. With Leidos, a new Common Automation Platform for air traffic control is ready to deploy and deliver critical improvements in months, not years.
Infographic: Common Automation Platform
The U.S. National Airspace System
Leidos brings 60+ years of operational support in the safest, most complex, and largest airspace system in the world.
ERAM
The En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) system is considered the heart of the NAS. This highly resilient automation system is utilized by air traffic controllers at all 20 CONUS en route centers, providing the primary automation for air traffic control to monitor and guide flights throughout en route airspace above 10,000 ft.
ATOP
The Advanced Technologies & Oceanic Procedures (ATOP) system provides air traffic control services to aircraft flying in the 23 million square miles of airspace delegated to the United States by the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans.
FFSP
Leidos Flight Service supports the FAA’s Future Flight Services Program (FFSP) system by facilitating the filing of flight plans, providing weather briefings, and safety notifications and alerts relevant to the flight plans filed by the General Aviation (GA) pilots.
Leidos Air Traffic Management Innovation Center
The Leidos ATM Innovation Center is a full-suite technology demonstration facility located in downtown Washington D.C. where the latest air traffic control technologies and platforms can be seen in action.
Our systems help guide more than
4M passengers
and 56k flights daily
Advancing Air Traffic Management
Leidos Common Automation Platfrom
A single, resilient solution for en route, oceanic, and terminal air traffic control. The Leidos Common Automation Platform (L-CAP) solution offers a future-ready hybrid cloud data mesh architecture that enables rapid deployment of updates without risking service disruption while meeting stringent security and resilience requirements.
Surface Data Management
Our Surface Data Management capabilities, including support of the FAA Terminal Flight Data Manager (TFDM) program, help improve awareness, efficiency, and predictability in surface application environments for our tower controllers while facilitating collaborative decision making for surface data stakeholders. Solutions include Electronic Flight Strips, Airport Surface Data exchange, and Surface and Departure metering.
Advanced Air Mobility
Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is rapidly emerging and poised to revolutionize the future of air travel by enabling safe, scalable, and efficient transportation through the use of new aircraft entrants. Electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, drones, and other advanced aerial vehicles will need to be integrated into civilian airspace creating exciting new opportunities for urban air mobility (UAM), cargo delivery, emergency response, and more.
Trajectory-Based Operations
Leidos enables Trajectory-based operations through SkyLineFlow and the FAA's Time-Based Flow Management (TBFM) System by providing time-based capabilities to manage air traffic in the en route environment, Terminal Maneuvering Area (TMA) and runways. These capabilities enable full use of available capacity at airports and promote greater efficiency by orchestrating the flow of aircraft into airports.
Global air traffic management solutions
Air Traffic Management (ATM) requires resilient services, robust response, adaptability, flexibility, and intuitive failsafe operations. At Leidos, we meet these comprehensive requirements through a single system: SkyLine-X™.
We designed SkyLine-X™ to keep our customers ahead of the rapidly growing demands of the global aviation market, built the system from the best components of proven, globally deployed ATM technologies, and incorporated next generation features co-developed in partnership with ANSPs and technology providers. The system provides the latest ATM services for tower and terminal, en route, oceanic, and comprehensive flow control management capabilities.
Stay Ahead of the Curve in Air Traffic Management
As global air traffic volume grows, modernizing ATM systems is no longer optional—it’s essential. At Leidos, our experts are helping air navigation service providers (ANSPs) navigate the future of air traffic with confidence. Our experts have developed a growing series of white papers designed to share insights, strategies, and lessons learned from real-world modernization implementations.
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Intelligent Approach
Leidos and NATS have pioneered a product suite that blends technology and Air Traffic Control (ATC) expertise to enable airports to optimize approach spacing for aircraft through both distance-based and time-based separation.
