WASHINGTON, DC - The Federal Aviation Administration announced plans to modernize its IT infrastructure following the recent massive outage that crippled air traffic across the country. Under the new plan, the agency will upgrade all of its client desktops to Windows XP.
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WASHINGTON, DC – The Federal Aviation Administration announced plans to modernize its IT infrastructure following the recent massive outage that crippled air traffic across the country. Under the new plan, the agency will upgrade all of its client desktops to Windows XP.

After experiencing a multi-hour outage that was the result of an IT contractor inserting a floppy disk that contained a copy of the Love Bug virus the FAA realized it was finally time to act.

In a new proposal championed by Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the agency plans to upgrade its entire IT infrastructure to the more modern and capable Windows XP operating system.

“Our aviation infrastructure deserves the best,” Buttigieg said in remarks that were faxed to him by the Biden Administration’s press secretary before a hastily arranged press conference. “By using Windows XP we can also save a little money because we can reuse the same hardware that was previously running Windows 95.”

The secretary also announced that the agency will upgrade its internal network infrastructure to a more current version of Novell Netware, a token-based network system popular for about 19 minutes in the early 2000s.


Lee is the brains (but definitely not the looks) of The Takeoff Nap. When he's not complaining about upgrades he runs a few travel blogs, but this one is his favorite.

21 replies on “FAA to modernize IT equipment, upgrade to Windows XP following massive outage”

    1. Hahaha I’m wondering the same and wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t. Although latet Win 98 hardware would run XP , older Win 95 hardware would struggle.

    2. “Buttigieg said in remarks that were faxed to him by the Biden Administration’s press secretary”. You sure about that? I thought they were still using telex.

  1. Windows XP?… Windows XP? I’m a senior cyber security professional and I can attest that this either has to be a joke or the FAA is intentionally trying to fail.

  2. I doubt it, many hospitals are still on XP. There is a great reluctance to upgrade even browser versions in the medical field, and I suspect it’s the same in other government adjacent sectors.

  3. Sigh…how low we’ve gotten as a society that SARCASM and SATIRE (clearly indicated in the article and site) just fly over people’s heads. Certainly a sad time to live in.

  4. If my experience with the federal govt is any gauge, the FAA was/is probably operating a DOS-centric system. Upgrading to Windows 95 is probably a leap.

  5. What the heck are regulators thinking Microsoft has lond discontinued even extended support for Windows XP

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