The FAA makes the facility manager answer for the E-IDS screen

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Order JO 7210.638, effective 1 October 2026, gives the air traffic manager at an E-IDS facility the local adaptation of the new controller display and the procedures for its outage.

“It is the air traffic manager at a facility who performs the duties in paragraph 5.”

This October, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gave its air traffic managers a new set of duties. Order JO 7210.638, effective 1 October 2026, defines management responsibilities for the Enterprise Information Display System (E-IDS), a platform for operational control positions at more than 400 facilities across all air traffic control domains. Under paragraph 2, the order applies to the air traffic facilities using E-IDS administration or oversight. Installation starts in 2026. It is the air traffic manager at a facility who performs the duties in paragraph 5.

On its program page, the FAA names 4 legacy systems for E-IDS to replace, IDS-4, ACE-IDS, NIDS and ERIDS. IDS-4 is the Information Display System 4. NIDS expands to the NAS Information Display System and ACE-IDS to the ASOS Controller Equipment Information Display System. We set that page beside the order and counted again. Paragraph 4 of the order counts 5 legacy display systems. A manager rewriting local directives against the 2 FAA documents will likely notice a difference of 1 system in the retirement list.

The FAA ties E-IDS to 2 items on the Top 5 Safety Issues list of the Air Traffic Organization, pilot report (PIREP) capabilities and the timely distribution of Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs). The program page adds end-of-life technical problems in the legacy displays. By the FAA account, the controller gains information exchange across the National Airspace System through System Wide Information Management (SWIM). An Enterprise Information Management platform supplies the local and national static information. Coverage of the contract award listed the content as airport weather sensor observations, runway status, visibility, diagrams, approach charts and facility directives.

In August 2020, the FAA awarded the E-IDS contract at 294.9 million US dollars over a potential 15 years. The award combined a 4-year base period with up to 11 option years. The FAA planned the system for more than 4,000 workstations once fully installed, according to the reporting on the award. The program itself had started in 2019 with a 2.6 million US dollar contract for program management and support services.

Under paragraph 5a, E-IDS is an informational aid. The manager must ensure that controllers issue control instructions from other equipment, never from E-IDS. Paragraph 4 places the display at operational control positions and allows it at nonoperational training and support positions. Once notified of a deployment, the manager must maintain awareness of the schedule and learn the system well enough to guide local implementation and administration. The E-IDS Program Office sends facilities their deployment information through the Operations Support Group at the Service Center.

It falls to the manager, under paragraph 5c, to initiate the changes a deployment produces in facility directives, reference materials, operational contingency plans and training. For the contingency plans, the order cites FAA Order JO 1900.47. The program side gives the manager policy direction, technical training or briefings to bring local adaptation up to the standards of the Air Traffic Organization.

Adapting the display to a facility is a local appointment. The manager designates a local data administrator (LDA) for facility adaptation and approves that adaptation in collaboration with the LDA and the bargaining unit representatives. The program page describes data administration tools for timely configuration of key sites and lists collaborative maintenance by FAA Technical Operations staff among the benefits of the platform.

Paragraph 5d(3) sets out the content. The manager must establish procedures to give controllers position and sector binder information, NOTAMs, PIREPs and dynamic operational information. For binder information the order cites paragraphs 2-1-3, 6-2-2 and 10-2-2 of FAA Order JO 7210.3. NOTAMs take JO 7210.3 paragraph 6-3-2 with JO 7110.65 paragraph 4-7-12. PIREPs take JO 7210.3 paragraph 6-3-1.

Paragraph 5e makes the manager establish procedures for an E-IDS outage or degradation. There are 5 items in those procedures. Binder information, NOTAM distribution, PIREPs and dynamic operational information make up the first 4. The fifth is notice to the General Manager once E-IDS mitigations are in place. For the outage case the order cites JO 7210.3 paragraph 6-3-4, on the Flight Data Unit. The 2 safety issues behind the program, PIREPs and NOTAM distribution, thus appear again in the outage plan the facility writes for itself.

Through its lifecycle, E-IDS remains under corporate management by the E-IDS Program Office, AJM-2. Facilities send questions on configuration, functionality and deployment to AJM-2 through the Service Center OSG. AJV-P initiated the order. That office answers questions about the order itself and helps the OSG coordinate with AJM-2. Jon M. Stowe, Director of Policy, signed the order. Appendix A is FAA Form 1320-19, the directive feedback form for comments from facilities.

Across the western Pacific, the Guam Combined Center Radar Approach Control (CERAP) controls nearly 260,000 square miles of airspace. Its traffic includes Andersen Air Force Base and the airports of Guam, Rota, Saipan and Tinian. During Cope North in February 2020, more than 100 aircraft flew 1,259 sorties. The CERAP manager put the rise in daily traffic at 100% of the normal count. Should the Guam CERAP take E-IDS, paragraph 5d makes its manager answerable for the local adaptation. The island's CHamoru name, Guåhan, comes from guaha (to have).

Article XXII, Section 3 of the Constitution of the Northern Mariana Islands names Chamorro, Carolinian and English as the official languages of the Commonwealth. That section lets the legislature provide that government proceedings and documents appear in at least 1 of the 3 languages. The capital of the Commonwealth is on Saipan, with Tinian and Rota as neighbouring islands, so 3 of the airports under the CERAP lie in that jurisdiction. On Guåhan, recent legislation codified the spelling CHamoru for the language and its people.