USS Ronald Reagan completes maintenance, rejoins fleet

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan has finished its 18-month maintenance at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Wash., and “returned to the fleet capable and mission-ready,” the Navy said in a statement Tuesday.

Reagan, commissioned in 2003, is the second youngest of 10 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.

The ship underwent a Docked Planned Incremental Availability (DPIA), which includes extensive hull maintenance, flight deck repair, reactor support, combat upgrades and improvements to living and working space for the approximately 5,000 crew members who serve on board when the ship is deployed.

A crane hovers over the USS Ronald Reagan at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard’s Pier Bravo in January 2025. (U.S. Navy)

The carrier began the DPIA, its first since 2012, in March 2025. Reagan left the Seattle-area shipyard Sept. 3-7 for sea trials, according to ship watcher websites.

The Navy did not say when Reagan might next be deployed, citing operational security.

Reagan is currently the only homeported carrier at Naval Base Kitsap. It previously shared the base with USS Nimitz, which moved to Naval Air Station Norfolk, Va., this summer as the initial step toward a planned March 2027 retirement.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle said during a public meeting at Kitsap in June that USS Abraham Lincoln, currently homeported in San Diego, would likely transfer to the Bremerton, Wash.-area base in the future. Lincoln is currently returning across the Pacific to San Diego from deployment in the Arabian Sea.

The Navy previously announced that USS John F. Kennedy, the second Gerald R. Ford-class carrier currently being built by HII Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, would homeport at Kitsap beginning in 2029. The Navy is spending $145 million on electrical upgrades at the base to accommodate the higher energy needs of the Ford-class carriers.