FAA Expands AI Traffic Tool to All 22 US En Route Centers Despite Lawmakers' Questions

The tool is called SMART, short for Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories. It forecasts where demand for airspace is likely to exceed capacity and identifies flights that could be rerouted before congestion builds. The FAA announced the expansion in a November 10 statement, seven weeks after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford launched the system on September 21 for flights at Reagan National, Washington Dulles and Baltimore/Washington International.

The expansion takes AI-generated recommendations into traffic flow planning across the whole US system. Duffy has presented SMART as part of a long-delayed overhaul of the agency's software. The system was developed under a 12-year, $875 million contract awarded to Air Space Intelligence in June, according to AVweb.

The FAA's early results are modest. The agency says SMART has rerouted 180 flights, saving an average of 10 minutes and nearly 80 gallons of fuel per rerouted flight. In one example the FAA cited, a flight from Tampa to Dallas saved 42 minutes.

SMART draws on about 200 data streams, including weather, flight paths, traffic volumes and controller staffing. FAA specialists at a SMART centre in Washington review the output and send scheduling recommendations to the Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Warrenton, Virginia. The command centre passes them to the facilities responsible for the airspace concerned, and local managers decide whether to act. The FAA describes the tool as a planning layer alongside its existing systems. Controllers remain responsible for keeping aircraft apart, and the agency says SMART cannot replace them or take control of an aircraft.

The rollout has drawn objections. On October 9, more than two dozen lawmakers wrote to Duffy and Bedford asking the FAA to suspend the initial deployment until questions about safety evaluations, staff training and oversight had been answered. "Any upgrades and changes to ATC systems must be made with safety as the first priority," they wrote. They also asked for details of a planned 90-day evaluation period and the standards SMART would have to meet before nationwide use.

The November 10 announcement did not address those questions, according to AeroTime and AVweb. Ars Technica reported that airlines have praised the tool but that the air traffic controllers' union was not involved in it.

The FAA has not said publicly whether the 90-day evaluation the lawmakers asked about has finished, or what standards SMART met before the nationwide expansion was approved.