FAA Announces Operational Digital Towers in Florida and Alaska

WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said November 6 that digital air traffic control towers are operational at Bartow Executive Airport (BOW) in Florida and Kenai Municipal Airport (ENA) in Alaska, expanding its deployment of camera-based systems for controllers.

The agency's announcement identifies Frequentis as the selected supplier. Cameras and digital displays provide a continuous, 360-degree view of runways, taxiways and surrounding airspace. Human controllers continue to manage traffic.

Five additional airports are slated to receive the systems: Winter Haven Regional and Venice Municipal in Florida, Montgomery County Airpark in Maryland, Johnston Regional in North Carolina, and Durango-La Plata County in Colorado. The announcement does not give individual deployment dates.

November 6 marks the announcement rather than the start of every installation. The FAA's program timeline dates Bartow's operational milestone to September, when the agency also issued system design approval for Frequentis's smartVISION technology for sponsor-owned contract-tower airports with a single runway and Class D airspace.

What Digital Towers Change

Digital towers replace the view through tower windows with electronic imagery. The FAA's technical explanation allows control equipment to be located on or off airport grounds; the term does not necessarily mean controllers work at a distant facility.

The deployment follows earlier U.S. trials. Leesburg Executive Airport in Virginia previously used remote-tower technology. The town's July 2023 account of its transition to a mobile tower says that program ended in June 2023.

Digital towers also serve a different purpose from the FAA's Enterprise Information Display System rollout. That project updates the operational information controllers consult; digital towers change how they see airport activity.

Could Digital Towers Change the Economics of Smaller Airports?

The FAA presents digital towers as a lower-cost alternative to conventional tower construction that could extend air traffic control services to rural and community airports. The November announcement does not include a project-level cost comparison for Bartow or Kenai.

Wider adoption also requires more than purchasing cameras. The FAA says design approval typically takes 24 to 36 months, depending on product maturity and supporting engineering documentation. Airport sponsors must then meet site-commissioning and public-use prerequisites.

Evaluations test image delay, equipment failures and controller responses, as well as training materials. Those requirements make reliability and human performance part of the deployment process. The published design-approval scope also limits what the current milestone establishes about use at larger, more complex airports.

Assessing savings at Bartow and Kenai would require installation and ongoing operating costs, including staffing. Those figures are not supplied in the November announcement.