On Friday, May 8, 2026, the U.S. industry outlet USNI News learned that delivery of the fourth Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, the future USS Doris Miller (CVN-81), will be delayed by two years, from 2032 to February 2034. Given that it was ordered on January 31, 2019, 15 years will pass before it enters service with the U.S. Navy.
Rendering of the third ship, USS Enterprise (CVN-80), which is already under construction / Graphic: Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII; part of Northrop Grumman)
This follows from detailed information contained in President Donald Trump’s request for the defense budget under the federal National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027 (NDAA FY2027), in the U.S. Navy budget section.
“The CVN-81 delivery date shifted from February 2032 to February 2034 due to shipbuilder construction footprint constraints limiting their ability to build CVN-81 ship modules,” reads the Navy’s FY 2027 shipbuilding book.
The ship was ordered seven years ago together with the future USS Enterprise (CVN-80), the third Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, whose keel was laid on August 27, 2022.
“CVN-81’s construction schedule has been affected by the cascading impact of CVN-80 delays on shipyard footprint capacity,” HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding spokesperson Todd Corillo told USNI News in a statement. “In turn, these capacity constraints have hindered initial CVN-81 structural build in the dry dock. We expect to host the keel laying this year.”
“CVN-81 units continue to move through steel fabrication and outfitting in support of the keel laying later this year,” Newport News Shipbuilding president Kari Wilkinson said Tuesday during HII’s Fiscal Year 2026 first quarter earnings call.
The future USS Enterprise (CVN-80), in turn, is experiencing an eight-month delay, according to the company’s financial results documents.
“The CVN-80 delivery date shifted from July 2030 to March 2031 due to delay in critical path construction required for launch of the ship,” reads the documents, which means it will take just over 12 years to build Enterprise.
“CVN-80 construction delays result from late arrival of large, sequence-critical equipment that hindered the initial structural build of the ship in the dry dock,” Corillo told USNI News in a separate statement. “All of the delayed critical material has since arrived.”
Problems with Enterprise had already been reported in 2024. During the aforementioned conference call, Wilkinson said that supply chain issues had caused the shipyard to build Enterprise modules in the wrong sequence, leading to delays.
All Gerald R. Ford-class ships being built under the CVN 21 Future Carrier Program have experienced delays at Newport News Shipbuilding. Construction of the future USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), the second carrier, was delayed multiple times. Finally, in January this year, the ship departed for its first sea trials. Delivery is planned for March 2027, forcing the U.S. Navy to extend the service life of USS Nimitz (CVN-68) by 10 months. It is worth adding that in 2020, the U.S. Navy changed the previously planned two-phase delivery method, opting for a single-phase delivery, which extended the process to 16 years from the time the ship was ordered.
USS Doris Miller (CVN-81) will be named after World War II hero Doris “Dorie” Miller (1919-1943), who served aboard the Colorado-class battleship USS West Virginia (BB-48) from January 2, 1940.
Plans also include USS William J. Clinton (CVN-82) and USS George W. Bush (CVN-83), for which a preliminary work schedule has not yet been established. Four additional unnamed carriers are also to be built, for a total of 10 ships, which will replace all Nimitz-class units.
