The Federal Aviation Administration has switched on an artificial intelligence system called SMART over Washington, D.C., the first stop in a rollout its designers say is meant to cut flight delays across the entire country. The tool, short for Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories, began limited operation on September 21 at Ronald Reagan Washington National, Dulles International, and Baltimore/Washington International, according to the FAA. Officials say it will expand to other regions in stages over the coming months as the agency tries to get ahead of the congestion that produces most delays.
Centralizing 200 data streams to predict congestion
SMART works by pulling together roughly 200 separate data streams, including weather patterns, planned flight paths, real-time traffic flow, and controller staffing levels, into a single set of scheduling recommendations. The FAA describes it as an enhancement layered on top of its existing Flow Management Data and Services platform, the software that already balances demand against airspace capacity at the agency’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Warrenton, Virginia, the facility that has long served as the nerve center for managing traffic flow across the entire national airspace system.
That command center already reroutes and metes out departure times when storms or high demand threaten to overwhelm a stretch of airspace, but it has historically done so with a shorter forecasting window and less granular staffing data than SMART is designed to fold in. Feeding controller staffing levels into the same model that tracks weather and traffic flow lets the system flag a facility that will be short-handed during a demand surge days out, rather than after controllers are already scrambling to manage the gap.
Rather than reacting after congestion builds, the system is designed to flag conflicts before aircraft ever leave the gate, adjusting routes and departure timing to keep traffic flowing. In the FAA’s announcement of the launch, Administrator Bryan Bedford said the goal is to intervene earlier in the process, with the new capabilities meant to help by “improving how [the FAA manages] airspace before flights depart, reducing congestion, easing controller workload, and directly cutting down delays across the system.”
Three Washington airports first, then the rest of the country
The FAA built SMART with contractor Air Space Intelligence, a company it selected in June to develop both SMART and a related scheduling platform called Flow Management Data and Services. Reporting from Benzinga puts the value of that agreement at $875 million over 12 years, and the FAA has said it plans to expand the system gradually beyond the Washington region rather than deploy it nationwide at once. Air Space Intelligence chief executive Phillip Buckendorf said the FAA is “embracing commercially proven technology already helping everyone from major airlines to the broader aviation community operate more efficiently and predictably,” a reference to the company’s existing work forecasting airspace demand for airlines.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has framed the Washington launch as the opening phase of a system meant to touch flights well beyond the capital, telling reporters the technology will “slash those frustrating delays, reduce stress on air traffic controllers, and lower travel prices” once it reaches more of the network. The FAA has not published a fixed date for full nationwide coverage, saying instead that expansion will proceed region by region as the software is validated against live traffic at the three Washington-area airports before it moves anywhere else.
Duffy: “It’s always going to be a human”
Both Duffy and Bedford have been explicit that SMART generates recommendations rather than commands, and that human controllers keep final authority over every aircraft. “There’s been a lot of conversation about AI and who is controlling the airspace,” Duffy said, according to NPR’s coverage of the launch. “It’s always going to be a human that manages the airspace in America. This tool won’t manage the airspace, but it gives [controllers] better information, better data to manage the airspace on behalf of the American people.”
Local air traffic facilities can accept or reject SMART’s scheduling suggestions, and the system has no ability to separate aircraft or take control of a flight path itself, according to the FAA. Bedford has also acknowledged the status quo needs the help, saying plainly that the way the FAA manages traffic today “is chaotic and [it] can do better.”
Controllers’ union says it had no seat at the table
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, which represents the workforce SMART is meant to support, has distanced itself from the project’s development. The union said it “has not been involved in the design, testing, or implementation of SMART and therefore cannot speak to its effect on the air traffic control workforce at this time,” according to Flying Mag’s reporting on the rollout.
The union’s absence from the design process matters because the FAA is still working through a controller shortage of several thousand certified positions nationwide, a staffing problem SMART is not built to solve on its own. Retired controller Dave Riley, cited in NPR’s coverage of the launch, said the software can smooth scheduling but cannot put more trained people in towers that are already short-staffed, leaving the agency’s broader delay problem only partly addressed by the new system. Training a new controller from hire to full certification typically takes years, a timeline no software rollout can compress, which is why Riley’s caution centers on what SMART cannot do rather than a dispute over what it can.
The Washington deployment gives the FAA a proving ground before it has to defend the software’s recommendations in busier, more complex airspace elsewhere in the country. Regions with heavier seasonal weather disruption, like the Northeast corridor in winter or Florida during summer thunderstorm season, would test SMART’s forecasting model far harder than the comparatively predictable traffic pattern around the three Washington airports where it is currently running.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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