World’s largest warship, over 100,000 tons, grounded and delayed for two years
The John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier was scheduled for completion this summer but a series of complication have pushed back the start date.
Earlier this year officials announced that the long-awaited John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier would not be ready in July 2025, as previously scheduled. Instead, the Navy will have to wait until 2027 for the huge vessel to hit the seas, causing a major logistical headache.
The new ship was christened in December 2019 but there have been a series of complications. A report from the latest FY 2026 shipbuilding budget book details the two problem areas in the vessel currently.
One is the Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG), which is “the system used to catch aircraft landing on the carrier’s deck.” The other is the Advanced Weapons Elevator (AWE), covering the “weapons elevators that move ordnance through the ship”.
A statement from the HII, the parent company of Newport News Shipbuilding, reads: "Our focus is to complete these important national security assets as quickly as possible by addressing first of class production and supply base challenges impacting submarine and aircraft carrier programs. HII is committed to delivering the most complete and combat ready ship to the Navy as early as possible."
“This is going to have a huge impact,” retired Vice Admiral Herm Shelanski told WTKR.
Shelanski added that the Navy cannot simply return to older vessels in the meantime: “With this new technology, why it’s so critical and why we implemented it, is because now we’re like 150 percent better and we can do more without one carrier than we could with the Nimitz."
The USS Nimitz is the Navy’s oldest carrier and is due for decommissioning in 2026. Once that process begins the Navy will drop to 10 carriers, with the long-awaited JFK being the 11th upon its completion.
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