NORFOLK, Va. — Originally scheduled to be ready in July of 2025, the John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier being built at Newport News Shipbuilding now won’t be ready until 2027. The delay also means the Navy will be short a carrier for a little bit.
“This is going to have a huge impact," said retired Vice Admiral Herm Shelanski.
The Kennedy, the Navy’s next carrier to join the fleet, needs more time for work on the system that stops planes when they land and the system that brings missiles and bombs up to the flight deck.
That’s according to a Department of Defense budget document.
The Norfolk-based USS Gerald R. Ford, the most recent carrier to be built, had similar challenges during construction.
Shelanski said this doesn’t mean, as some have suggested, the Navy can simply go back to older technology like what’s on the USS Nimitz, the Navy’s oldest carrier.
“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," Shelanski explained.
As of July 2025, the Nimitz was scheduled to start being decommissioned in 2026. Once that starts, the Navy will only have 10 carriers instead of 11 until the JFK is complete. Shelanski said having one less carrier means longer deployments for the remaining carriers.
As of July 8, the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group was deployed to the Middle East along with the USS Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group.
Watch: US military bolsters presence in the Middle East amid Israel-Iran tensions
A statement from Newport News Shipbuilding’s parent company, HII, says the shipyard is working with “urgency and resolve” to deliver the aircraft carriers and submarines the military needs.
"Our shipbuilders are working alongside our U.S. Navy teammates and industry partners with urgency and resolve to deliver the submarines and aircraft carriers our nation needs. 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."
The DoD budget document also says the completion of the the Enterprise, a carrier also being built at Newport News Shipbuilding, has been delayed from September 2029 to July 2030 because of a delay in getting materials and industry and supply chain performance.
