FAA taps $875 million AI program SMART

The FAA has been struggling with an air traffic control shortage across the country, and the government has said it is looking for innovative solutions. Alongside that, the agency is engaged in a broad effort to modernize the nation's aging air traffic systems, and earlier this year it announced a "bold, new" hiring plan it said would erase the longstanding staffing shortage. SMART sits within that mix rather than replacing it.

The program is described in a one-page readout as a cloud-based platform that enhances existing FAA air traffic management systems. Its pitch rests on anticipation: rather than reacting to congestion, it is designed to predict traffic flows and identify potential conflicts before they occur, based on inputs including airline schedules, weather, airport capacity, airspace conditions and operational constraints. The Washington, D.C., metropolitan area is the first test region before any wider expansion.

How much this changes day-to-day operations is likely to hinge on how well those predictions perform once controllers actually rely on them in the D.C. area, and on whether the rollout expands to other regions as planned. For controllers and airline scheduling teams, the practical question is whether SMART eases workload during a staffing shortage or simply adds another system to work with.