FAA to Deploy $875M AI Air Traffic System — SkimNews
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- FAA is preparing to launch SMART, an $875 million AI software program spread over 12 years, designed to help air traffic controllers manage workflows and navigate flight routes more safely.
- SMART (Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes, and Trajectories), built by Air Space Intelligence, is a cloud-based platform that predicts traffic flows and identifies potential conflicts using data on airline schedules, weather, airport capacity, airspace conditions, and operational constraints.
- The program will first deploy in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area before expanding to other regions nationwide.
- The FAA is rolling out the AI tool amid a longstanding nationwide air traffic controller shortage, and earlier this year announced a separate hiring plan aimed at erasing that gap while the government pursues broader modernization of aging air traffic systems.
Why it matters: The FAA is committing $875 million over 12 years to a single private vendor (Air Space Intelligence) for an AI tool that supplements — not replaces — human controllers, while running a parallel hiring push to fill the same gap with people. The rollout begins in the busy D.C. metro airspace, meaning taxpayers and travelers in that region are first in line to absorb any teething problems from untested software handling high-volume traffic.
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