Floppy disks. The 1980s want them back but the United States’ aviation authority isn’t ready to let go yet. Instead, the FAA said this week it will phase out usage by 2028.

‘Wait’. ‘Hold on’, you say. Is the FAA still using a decades-old technology to track the roughly 5,200 planes flying over US domestic airspace at any given minute? In 2026?

Yes. And no. Look closely and the picture is less alarming and more interesting. The floppy disks themselves don’t track air traffic. Instead, they are part of four 80s-era computer systems that store ‘vital weather and other critical information’.

A US Department of Transportation changesheet said: “Controllers use a system – Information Display System 4 – driven by floppy disks and an antiquated operation system for critical information such as weather, NOTAMs, and airport status.” By 2028 all four will be folded into modern information display equipment; “Floppy disks from the 1980s: OUT,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declared on X.

Floppy disks from the…