The USS Enterprise CVN-80 is seen in the Newport News Shipbuilding yard on Aug. 26, 2022 (Kendall Warner/Daily Press/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
TNS
The United States Navy is likely to face continued delays with its nuclear-powered supercarriers. It is not a new problem, but it shows no signs of resolution.
The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), the service’s newest active aircraft carrier, was delivered more than two and a half years behind its original schedule. Nine years after being commissioned in 2017, the nuclear-powered warship still requires significant upgrades and modifications to fully operate the fifth-generation Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II.
Delivery of the second Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, the future USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), was delayed last year from August 2025 to March 2027 to incorporate several critical upgrades. The decision was made to complete that work rather than address the modifications following delivery.
Unfortunately for the U.S. Navy, the delays won’t end with CVN-79.
The future USS Enterprise (CVN-80), which was to be delivered in March 2028, had its handover previously shifted to July 2030. On Friday, it was announced that the U.S. Navy won’t receive the warship until March 2031 at the earliest. That eight-month slip is an improvement over the year and a half the future USS John F. Kennedy has faced, but it is just the latest delay the service is facing with its supercarriers.
As USNI News reported, the “schedule means it will take just over 12 years to build Enterprise.”
The delays are set to be even worse with the future USS Doris Miller (CVN-81), which could arrive at least two-years later than previously planned. The U.S. Navy will continue to face such cascading holdups because as construction on one vessel slips, it impacts the next ship in line even more.
It isn’t just future carriers that are being impacted.
Setback with the delivery of CVN-79 forced the U.S. Navy to postpone the decommissioning of the USS Nimitz (CVN-68), the oldest active nuclear-powered supercarrier. It is now in the final weeks of her homeport shift from Bremerton, Wash., to Norfolk, Va., sailing around South America, where she has made numerous goodwill stops, greeted foreign VIPs, and taken part in joint exercises with maritime partners in Latin America.
Although CVN-68 is unlikely to be deployed again, she’ll officially remain in service U.S. law requires that the U.S. Navy maintain at least 11 nuclear-powered supercarriers.
Only One Shipyard Builds Carriers
The delays are largely due to a lack of shipyards. All of the United States Navy’s nuclear-powered carriers are built by Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Va.
That has been the case for more than six and a half decades.
The last aircraft carrier not built at Newport News was the Kitty Hawk-class conventionally-powered USS Constellation (CVN-64), which was constructed by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, New Jersey, and commissioned in 1961.
All subsequent carriers, including the former USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the USS America (CV-66), the former USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), and all 10 of the Nimitz-class supercarriers, have been built at HII’s Newport News shipyard.
In addition, mid-life refueling, which all active U.S. Navy aircraft carriers must undertake, is also handled at the facility, an issue that the Congressional Budget Office previously warned has exacerbated delays.
HII Has Focused On Improvements
In a quarterly investment call with analysts on May 5, 2026, HII CEO Chris Kastner said the shipyard remained “focused on preparing for CVN 79 acceptance trials later this year,” which need to be completed before the future USS John F. Kennedy can be handed over to the U.S. Navy and then commissioned.
That will then follow post-delivery sea trials, meaning it could be a few more years before CVN-79 begins her maiden deployment.
HII has also touted the progress made with the next two carriers.
“CVN-80 Enterprise is now coming together at pace and is over 50% erected in Dry Dock 12, and CVN-81 units continue to move through steel fabrication and outfitting in support of the keel laying later this year,” Kastner added.
Kari Wilkinson, HII executive vice president and Newport News Shipbuilding president, added that work on the future USS Enterprise has picked up speed after supply-chain delays were resolved.
“Having that equipment delivered now … is really going to help us from a performance perspective,” Wilkinson told analysts. “The team has been really focused on structural completion with those components in place.”
She added that over the past quarter, three superlifts were completed in just 10 days. Large modern warships, typically carriers, are built from massive prefabricated modules that are welded together before the unit is lifted into a dry dock. That process is meant to streamline the manufacture of the massive warships.
Construction of the new carriers includes upwards of 445 individual lifts, fewer than previous classes.
“It really enables the completion of distributed systems,” said Wilinson. “The team is getting the ship integrated.”
Even as progress continues, this is an issue that won’t be resolved soon.
Current plans call for the aging Nimitz-class carriers to be replaced on a one-to-one basis in the coming decades, but it is likely that USS Nimitz won’t be the only aging flattop that will see its service life extended due to delays with its replacement.