The Federal Aviation Administration expanded its SMART AI system to all 22 air traffic control centers on November 10, turning a pilot effort in Washington, DC, into a nationwide tool for managing congestion. The system is meant to advise controllers, not replace them, but the rollout means it is now being used across the country’s main air traffic network.
The agency said the expansion follows an initial deployment over Washington, DC, on September 21 that helped reroute 180 flights. In that test area, the FAA said SMART saved an average of 10 minutes per flight and almost 80 gallons of fuel per flight, which is why the search around FAA AI has sharpened now: the agency is no longer describing a trial, but a system it wants to use everywhere.
SMART is a cloud-based system that combines weather patterns, flight paths, traffic flow and controller staffing metrics to make scheduling recommendations, identify faster routes and determine the best order of arrivals for aircraft. The FAA said a human team of specialists based in DC validates those recommendations before they are sent to air traffic control facilities, and local controllers can still decide whether to accept them. Ed Bastian supported the earlier rollout, and Robert Isom also backed it.
The expansion also reaches air route traffic control centers in Atlanta, Jacksonville and Miami, a broader footprint than the initial Washington deployment. In one example the FAA gave to The Dallas Morning News, SMART recommended a shorter and faster route for a cargo flight arriving at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. That is the sort of operational change the agency says can reduce delays and fuel use, while remaining inside a system that still depends on people to sign off.
But the rollout is moving ahead without the support of the union representing more than 15,000 air traffic controllers. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association said it was not consulted or involved in the design, testing or implementation of SMART and therefore could not speak to its effect on the air traffic control workforce. The FAA says the system cannot take over control of an aircraft, yet it is now being widened before that labor dispute is resolved or the nationwide results can be measured in the same way as the Washington test.
The unanswered question is not whether SMART works in one corridor. It is whether the savings the FAA reports in Washington can survive contact with the rest of the national airspace system. The agency has made its move, and now the burden is on the rollout to prove that the numbers hold when all 22 centers are using the same tool.
