This resulted in facilities and equipment being distributed in a fairly equal manner among FAA’s nine regional offices on the basis of the priority assigned by each regional office and the availability of the regional office’s work force to implement the projects. However, we found that FAA generally did not rank locations numerically from a national perspective, use benefit-cost analysis as a tool for ranking eligible locations, and document the factors used to select certain locations over others. Opportunities to Improve FAA’s Process for Locating Facilities and Equipment

While we found that FAA’s process for selecting locations for facilities and equipment generally complied with the agency’s current guidance, we believe that it could be improved if FAA ranked locations numerically from a national perspective, considered the results of benefit-cost analyses as a key factor when appropriate, and documented the rationale for its decisions. Current FAA guidance does not require a numerical ranking of locations on a national basis, define what emphasis should be given to location-specific benefit-cost analyses and other factors, or specify what documentation is required when evaluating and selecting locations. This would allow FAA to rank eligible locations from a national perspective and help ensure that scarce facilities and equipment resources are targeted to the highest-priority needs. The officials said that given budget constraints, congressionally directed locations, and limited regional office work forces, FAA does a good job in allocating facilities and equipment to high-priority locations. Description and Funding History for Three Terminal Modernization Projects

The following are general descriptions and funding histories for the three Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) terminal modernization projects that we reviewed.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) process for selecting locations for its three terminal area projects, focusing on how FAA: (1) prioritizes locations; (2) analyzes the costs and benefits of its decisions; (3) documents its location decisions; and (4) could improve its decisionmaking process.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) FAA has funded the three projects in accordance with its own guidance and has fairly distributed facilities and equipment among its nine regional offices on a priority basis; (2) although FAA bases its project funding decisions on the availability of regional staff to implement the projects, it generally does not rank locations nationally or numerically, use cost-benefit analyses to rank eligible locations, or document the factors used to prioritize certain locations; (3) FAA believes that its approach for locating facilities and distributing equipment ensures that its limited resources are targeted to high-priority needs; (4) FAA believes that ranking each location on a national basis would be cost-prohibitive, create tensions among regional offices, favor large airports, and exclude safety factors that outweigh economic considerations; (5) current FAA guidance does not include provisions that specify how prospective locations will be evaluated; (6) FAA needs to develop a more analytically based decisionmaking process for ranking eligible locations; and (7) improved selection guidance could help FAA better ensure that it is making the best use of available resources in allocating facilities and equipment to high-priority locations.