The upgrade will replace proprietary traffic management systems with applications using Java, Web services, open-source software and Oracle products.

It will see wide scale deployment of the Open Sauce operating system down to the desktop in traffic flow centres.

The software will run the Enhanced Traffic Management System, which predicts traffic surges, gaps and volume across the US airspace.

Apparently when officials were first quoted a price for upgrading the system they were told it would take 18 months and cost $25 million.

According to the Government IT Resource Center the programme will only cost $10 million and will be finished in a third of the projected amount of time. µ