The Federal Aviation Administration is expanding its AI-assisted SMART traffic-management system to all 22 air-route control centers in the United States. The cloud-based tool combines weather, flight paths, traffic flow and controller staffing data to forecast congestion and recommend routes, schedules and arrival order.
The FAA says the $875 million system helped reroute 180 flights after its September 21 deployment around Washington, DC. The agency estimates those flights saved an average of 10 minutes and nearly 80 gallons of fuel each, though it has provided limited detail about individual passenger-flight results.
SMART does not control aircraft or replace air traffic controllers. A specialist team in Washington reviews its recommendations before sharing them with facilities, and local controllers decide whether to accept the advice. That human approval layer matters because the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, representing more than 15,000 workers, says it was not involved in the system’s design, testing or implementation.
Airline executives have supported the rollout, and the FAA previously extended coverage from Washington to centers in Atlanta, Jacksonville and Miami. Nationwide deployment will provide a much larger test of whether the early fuel and delay savings hold under varied traffic and weather conditions, while scrutiny will remain on transparency and controller involvement.