FAA Digital Towers Come Online, Replacing the Glass Cab with Cameras and Code
The FAA has activated digital air traffic control towers at two U.S. airports, replacing traditional glass cabs with cameras, sensors, and remote controllers.
On November 6, 2025, the FAA announced that digital air traffic control towers are fully operational at two airports - one in Florida, one in Alaska - with five more in the pipeline. This is no longer a test program. These are live, certificated operations managed from screens instead of from glass.
What Is a Digital Tower?
A digital tower - also called a remote tower or virtual tower - replaces the traditional glass cab with an array of high-definition cameras, infrared sensors, microphones, and curved display screens. A controller sits in front of monitors that reconstruct a full 360-degree visual scene of the airport environment, with pan-and-zoom capability, object detection overlays, and automatic aircraft tagging similar to a radar scope.
The key distinction from a traditional tower: the controller does not have to be physically present at the airport. The cameras stay on-site. The control function can operate from anywhere with a reliable data connection.
The European Track Record
This technology is not new. Sweden’s LFV (Luftfartsverket, the national air navigation service) went operational with a remote tower at Örnsköldsvik Airport in 2015 - a remote location above the Arctic Circle where staffing a full-time cab presented serious logistical and economic challenges. Norway, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and several other countries have since expanded the concept.
More than a decade of European operational data shows the technology works at lower-traffic airports. Camera and sensor systems, properly installed and maintained, meet or exceed the situational awareness available from a traditional cab - particularly in low-visibility conditions, where infrared sensors cut through what the human eye cannot. Controllers have cited the ability to zoom in on specific runway points and replay events as genuine operational advantages.
Why Florida and Alaska?
The FAA has not named the specific airports in either state, and the AOPA reporting this program does not identify them either. But the geographic logic is clear.
Florida has a large concentration of general aviation airports - training fields, seasonal destinations, and smaller facilities that see enough traffic to warrant controlled operations but not enough to justify the full infrastructure cost of a traditional tower. Digital tower economics favor airports in the range of 40 to 50 daily operations over major hubs.
Alaska presents a different case. The state has more airports per capita than any other in the U.S., including remote strips that are operationally critical to communities with no road access. Getting qualified controllers to some of these locations has historically been a persistent challenge. Remote tower technology doesn’t solve every problem in Alaskan aviation, but it opens options that weren’t previously viable.
What Changes for Pilots at These Airports?
Procedurally, nothing. You call tower on the published frequency, receive a response, and get instructions. The sequence of events in the cockpit is identical to any other controlled airport.
What differs is what’s happening on the other end of that radio call. The controller working your traffic may be physically located away from the airport, monitoring your aircraft through a camera system rather than through glass. The system is certificated to FAA separation and visibility standards - an operational certificate means it has been tested against those standards - but the information the controller is working with has different characteristics than what a controller in a traditional cab would have. Not necessarily worse. But different.
Pilots operating at digitally-towered airports should know their environment and understand they are flying in a newer operating model, even if the radio work looks identical.
Implications for Smaller Airports
The U.S. has a significant number of airports that currently operate without a tower because the staffing economics don’t work. If digital tower technology makes controlled services viable at those fields, the character of flying at some of them changes.
That conversation is not settled. Pilots who value the informality and autonomy of common traffic advisory frequency environments have legitimate reasons to prefer the status quo. Others see value in the structure controlled airspace provides. Both positions exist in the pilot community, and the expansion of this technology will put pressure on that debate.
What Comes Next
The FAA has not announced which five airports will receive digital towers next. The specifics, when they emerge, will indicate where the agency sees the greatest need and opportunity - and will tell a story about the future of controlled airspace at the margins of the national airspace system.
Major airports with high traffic complexity are not candidates for this technology in the near term. But at smaller fields where staffing challenges and economics have historically defined what services pilots receive, the model is shifting.
Key Takeaways
- The FAA activated digital air traffic control towers at two airports (Florida and Alaska) on November 6, 2025, with five more in development.
- Digital towers use HD cameras, infrared sensors, and curved display screens to give remote controllers a reconstructed 360-degree view of the airport - no physical cab required.
- The technology has over a decade of operational history in Europe, led by Sweden’s LFV beginning in 2015.
- Radio procedures for pilots are unchanged at digitally-towered airports - same frequency, same instructions, same cockpit workflow.
- The program’s expansion signals that remote tower economics work best at smaller, lower-traffic airports where traditional staffing is logistically or financially impractical.
Radio Hangar. Aviation talk, built by pilots. Listen live | More articles