The FAA is preparing to launch an AI air traffic control tool called Smart as soon as Monday, starting with a debut in the Washington, DC area before a wider rollout across the country.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Smart stands for Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories. The AI system pulls together airline schedules, weather data, airport runway capacity, and other operational constraints to forecast air-traffic flows and flag potential conflicts before they become problems.
Air Space Intelligence, the company behind the tool, won an $875 million, 12-year government contract earlier this year to build Smart along with a related system. The project is part of a broader push by the Trump administration, which has committed billions of dollars to modernizing air-traffic infrastructure and is also working to speed up hiring and training of air-traffic controllers.
FAA officials are talking with airlines about how to coordinate flight schedules as the software comes online. That rollout is smaller than some in the aviation industry had expected, though government officials say the limited scope was the plan from the start. Smart needs to be validated before the FAA expands what it can do, including spacing out arrival times and planning routes days in advance. For now, controllers will use it as a decision-making aid when problems come up, not as a full replacement for existing processes.
Federal officials plan to unveil a central office for the tool at the Transportation Department’s headquarters on Monday.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, a former regional airline executive, has been blunt about why the agency is pursuing the tool. Testifying before the Senate earlier this year, he said, “The way we manage traffic today is chaotic, and we can do better.” He also argued for giving the FAA more control over scheduling decisions that currently rest largely with carriers: “We need to manage that at the FAA, rather than rely on commercial airlines to simply schedule however they want.”
Airlines for America, the trade group representing major U.S. carriers, welcomed the rollout, calling it “one of the most exciting and bold initiatives taken on by the FAA in decades.”
Read more at the Wall Street Journal here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of AI, free speech, and online censorship.