The FAA’s Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories (SMART) is an airspace-planning and scheduling tool, not a system that flies aircraft. The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) says FAA staff review its recommendations and local facility leaders decide whether to accept or pass them. The tool’s first Washington-area deployment nevertheless raised questions about how it was explained, whether controllers participated and were trained, and what safety testing has been done.
What is the FAA’s SMART system?
SMART stands for Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories. USDOT described it as an AI-supported platform that brings together 200 data streams, including weather, flight paths, traffic flow and controller staffing metrics. The agency says the combined information gives specialists a shared picture of developing traffic and potential weather or capacity problems.
SMART is part of Flow Management Data and Services (FMDS), which the FAA selected from Air Space Intelligence for the Air Traffic Control System Command Center. In its June 22, 2026 announcement, USDOT described FMDS as organizing demand, capacity and traffic-management data, with SMART enhancing coordination of schedules and trajectories before departure.
The agency’s intended benefits include anticipating congestion and making scheduling more efficient. Those are expected benefits, not demonstrated results: the public material described here does not report measured changes in delays, capacity or costs.
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How is SMART supposed to work?
Under the deployment plan in USDOT’s September 21, 2026 fact sheet, FAA specialists at a SMART center analyze the incoming information and send forward-looking recommendations to the FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center. Recommendations then go to local facility leadership for consideration. USDOT says the center would be staffed around the clock during the staged rollout.
This is a planning and traffic-management chain: SMART analyzes data and suggests scheduling changes; people decide whether to act on them. The fact sheet says testing, employee training and assessment would continue during the rollout. That describes the agency’s plan, not proof that every stage has been completed or independently validated.
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Is AI controlling planes at DCA?
USDOT says SMART cannot take control of an aircraft. The initial deployment announced September 21 was in the Washington region, and Nextgov/FCW reported that it involved Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), Dulles International Airport and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI). This is an airspace-planning capability associated with the region; it is not a report that AI took over aircraft control in airport towers.
In a September 22 social post quoted by Nextgov/FCW, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said, “HUMANS still control the airspace and HUMANS still make the calls.” That is Duffy’s assurance about the system, not an independent technical finding.
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What human oversight does USDOT say remains?
USDOT says FAA personnel review SMART recommendations and local facility leadership may accept or pass on the scheduling suggestions. Those statements define the decision boundary the department describes: SMART advises, while agency personnel retain decision-making authority. The available material does not independently audit how recommendations are handled in practice.
In an October 2 Nextgov/FCW report, Representative Don Beyer said a conversation with FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford eased some of his concern. Beyer said Bedford told him experienced controllers had designed SMART and that it operates at the region’s Terminal Radar Approach Control facility in Warrenton, Virginia—not in the Dulles or National airport towers. These details are Beyer’s account of that conversation.
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Why did the Washington rollout draw criticism?
On September 21, Beyer called for the FAA to suspend the deployment. His statement raised concerns about the public explanation, whether controllers had been consulted and trained, reports that schedules and potentially routes might be adjusted, and the need for independent stress testing. He wrote, “The FAA should not use my constituents as guinea pigs for an unproven AI air traffic control system.” That is his criticism and request; it does not establish that testing was absent or that the system is unsafe.
The October 2 Nextgov/FCW report also quoted the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) as saying it “has not been involved in the design, testing or implementation of SMART” and could not yet speak to workforce effects. That statement and Beyer’s account of Bedford’s description of controller involvement are different accounts; the available reporting does not reconcile them or establish what training records show.
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Has SMART been independently tested, and what safety evidence is public?
USDOT’s fact sheet says the FAA would continue testing the system, training employees and assessing its operation during the staged rollout. Beyer’s call for independent testing identifies a requested safeguard, but it is not evidence that no testing took place. The sources described here do not disclose test protocols, independent validation results, a safety case, controller training records or measured safety outcomes. The evidence available therefore supports neither a claim of demonstrated safety performance nor a claim that SMART has failed a safety test.
USDOT’s September 2024 white paper, Understanding AI Risks in Transportation, provides general context rather than a SMART assessment. It says transportation AI risk depends in part on the system’s function and operating context, the parties responsible for it, applicable rules and its role in cyber-physical operations. The paper describes itself as an overview and starting point; it does not validate SMART. Similarly, the department’s AI activities page describes broader work on safe integration into aircraft and traffic-management operations, not SMART-specific compliance or test results.
Quick Recap
What can travelers reasonably conclude?
- SMART is described by USDOT as a planning and scheduling aid that consolidates operational data and generates recommendations.
- The department says FAA personnel review those recommendations and local facility leaders decide whether to accept them.
- The first deployment covered the Washington-area airspace context, including DCA, Dulles and BWI; that does not mean AI was controlling aircraft in their towers.
- Public concerns focus on transparency, controller participation and training, and independent safety evidence.
- The agency has described continuing testing and assessment, but the public sources cited in the October 2 reporting do not provide independent validation or measured safety outcomes.
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