The next Ford-class aircraft carrier is facing a two-year delay that will leave the Navy with ten carriers for about a year, USNI News has learned.
The future USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) will now deliver in March 2027, according to the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget justification documents. The carrier was supposed to deliver this month, according to last year’s budget plans.
“The CVN 79 delivery date shifted from July 2025 to March 2027 (preliminary acceptance TBD) to support completion of Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) certification and continued Advanced Weapons Elevator (AWE) work,” reads the latest FY 2026 shipbuilding budget book.
Those two technologies – the system used to catch aircraft landing on the carrier’s deck and the weapons elevators that move ordnance through the ship – are new systems incorporated into the Ford class. A spokesperson for General Atomics, which makes the AAG, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The Navy is exploring opportunities for preliminary acceptance of the vessel prior to formal delivery and is coordinating closely with stakeholders to ensure the fastest possible transition to fleet operations and a combat-capable carrier,” a Navy spokesperson told USNI News in a statement.
A spokesperson for HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding, which builds the carriers, said the company is applying lessons from building the lead ship to the successive ships in the class.
“Specifically, John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) construction was fairly advanced when many Ford lessons were realized, precluding timely implementation of lessons learned for Kennedy,” company spokesperson Todd Corillo said in a statement. “In contrast, Enterprise (CVN 80) and Doris Miller (CVN 81) have been able to incorporate, leverage and capitalize on Ford lessons learned earlier in the construction process.”
JFK has faced several delays over the course of the ship’s construction. In 2023, the Navy pushed the carrier’s delivery date out from June 2024 to 2025 so that Newport News could perform work during construction that typically happens during the Post Shakedown Availability period after delivery, USNI News reported at the time.
USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), the lead ship in the class, also faced delays due in part to difficulty installing and integrating the 11 weapons elevators into the ship. The final elevator turned over to the Navy in 2021, USNI News reported at the time. Likewise, the AAG system has faced developmental delays.
USS Nimitz (CVN-68), the oldest aircraft carrier in service at 50 years, is scheduled to retire in May 2026, meaning the Navy’s inventory will dip from 11 to 10 carriers for nearly a year before JFK delivers.
The Navy in 2020 switched from pursuing a dual-phase delivery approach for Kennedy to a single-phase delivery, a move that added two years of work to the carrier’s detail design and construction contract, according to the FY 2024 budget documents.
The additional work included modifications so the carrier could field the fifth-generation F-35C Joint Strike Fighter Lightning II – a capability the Navy originally planned to backfit later – and the new Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar.
Navy officials thought a dual-phase delivery approach could save the service money in construction costs at the shipyard and also in manning by minimizing the overlap between JFK entering service and Nimitz remaining in the fleet before its planned decommissioning. But once lawmakers, who were angry that the Navy’s newest carriers couldn’t field the latest fighters, required JFK to have the F-35C modifications before finishing its post-shakedown availability, the service abandoned the dual-phase delivery plans.
As recently as April, a Navy official told Congress he expected JFK to deliver in 2026.
The latest budget books show that the future USS Enterprise (CVN-80) is also facing a nearly one-year delay. The carrier is now slated to deliver in July of 2030 instead of last year’s projection of September 2029.
“The CVN 80 delivery date shifted from September 2029 to July 2030 due to delays in material availability and industry/supply chain performance,” reads the budget books.
Last year’s budget documents forecast an 18-month delay for Enterprise, pushing the delivery from March of 2028 to September of 2029, USNI News reported at the time.
“CVN 80’s schedule continues to be challenged by late delivery of sequence critical material,” the Navy spokesperson said about Enterprise. “Delays of 18-26 months as assessed as part of the 2024 45-Day Shipbuilding Review have eroded to 28 months with risk for overall ship construction. The Navy is working closely with the shipbuilder to improve those projections.”
