DC-area airports first to deploy AI tool for airspace management
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The SMART tool uses AI to crunch 200 different streams of flight data “to predict traffic flows and identify potential conflicts before they occur,” according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The Transportation Department announced on Monday that it rolled out a new artificial intelligence tool as part of its air traffic control modernization initiative, with three airports in the Washington, D.C. region the first in the nation to receive the new capability.
Transportation said the Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories — or SMART — tool will help to centralize 200 disparate data streams into one system that can provide better management insights.
A factsheet from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is overseeing the far-reaching effort to overhaul management of U.S. airspace, says that, “using AI, SMART analyzes airline schedules, weather, airport capacity, airspace conditions, and operational constraints to predict traffic flows and identify potential conflicts before they occur.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy first announced the Trump administration’s modernization initiative in May 2025. The effort, which includes some brick-and-mortar repairs but is largely focused on upgrading the systems that underpin oversight of the nation’s airspace, was launched after several high-profile plane accidents, including a deadly crash between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and a commercial airliner near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport that January.
The FAA announced a 12-year, $875 million contract with Air Space Intelligence in June to provide the SMART tool, as well as Flow Management Data and Services for a modernized Air Traffic Control System Command Center. The agency said at the time that both technologies “will improve how flights are scheduled and managed throughout the National Airspace System.”
“The FAA began using SMART in a limited mode today in the airspace around Washington, D.C. and plans to gradually expand it to other parts of the country,” the department said on Monday.
The Wall Street Journal first reported over the weekend that the FAA was planning to roll out the SMART tool at D.C.-area airports as soon as Monday.
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which oversees Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Dulles International Airport, directed comments to the FAA, since SMART is under their authority. Representatives from the FAA did not respond to a request for comment.
Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport is also slated to receive the SMART tool on Monday.
At a Sept. 15 event hosted by the National Artificial Intelligence Association, Duffy drew a distinction between the AI capabilities that will be used to enhance air traffic control, and some of the more advanced models that have led to growing concerns from some tech officials and lawmakers in recent weeks.
“It's all going to be driven, not by the most complicated AI, but AI that will provide information to them and will, I think, have a huge impact on the flying public,” he said.
During the event, Duffy also cited delays at Ronald Reagan National Airport as an example of how AI can transform flying and said “we can use AI and see this — when all these airplanes are in the air, we can speed them up or slow them down and have all of them get to [Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport] in one-minute increments, fly in and land.”