The US Federal Aviation Administration is preparing to launch an AI-assisted traffic-management platform under a contract worth $875 million over 12 years, according to reporting cited by TechCrunch. The system is intended to help controllers predict traffic flows and identify route conflicts before they develop.
SMART, short for Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes, and Trajectories, will analyze airline schedules, weather, airport capacity, current airspace conditions and operational constraints. It is described as a cloud platform that augments existing FAA systems rather than replacing controllers. The first rollout is planned for the Washington, DC metropolitan area before expansion to other regions. Air Space Intelligence supplies the software.
The program arrives as the FAA faces a persistent shortage of air traffic controllers and separately modernizes aging national infrastructure. Better prediction may help staff coordinate complex flows, but software does not create additional qualified controllers, and the available program summary does not provide performance targets, human-override procedures or independent safety results. A phased regional launch should create an opportunity to measure whether forecasts reduce workload and delays without introducing automation errors before the platform is used more broadly across the national airspace system.