DCA’s tower goes digital, bringing “electronic flight strips” to one of America’s tightest airspaces

Washington-area air traffic controllers have long managed aircraft movements with paper “flight strips”—narrow printed slips, one per flight, that controllers physically pass around and mark up while coordinating taxi, takeoff, and landing. Doug Lieberman, vice president and chief technology officer for air traffic at Leidos, said that workflow still exists at most US airports, even as tower teams handle “highly complex information” in some of the nation’s most congested airspace, in an interview with Federal News Network.

Following a fatal 2025 collision near Washington’s National Airport, the FAA has now fully operationalized a modern replacement: the Terminal Flight Data Manager (TFDM). The system replaces those paper strips with a digital interface displaying a surface map that shows where aircraft are on runways and taxiways. Lieberman said the upgrade is designed to reduce “cognitive load” by surfacing the right information at the right moment—including sequencing tools meant to keep aircraft from stacking up at gates, taxiways, and departure queues.

TFDM also matters in the National Capital Region because DCA sits in unusually constrained airspace, surrounded by restricted areas and dense military and civilian traffic. Lieberman said a shared, real-time picture helps align tower decisions with broader National Airspace System timing tools, including time-based flow management.

For travelers, the promise is simple: fewer ground delays, less fuel burn, and more predictable operations from pushback to arrival at the gate. Leidos said the FAA began implementing TFDM at DCA in June 2025 and reached operational status 45 percent faster than typical deployment timelines.