The FAA and U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy have unveiled SMART, a new airspace management system designed to reduce congestion and delays in the Washington, D.C. area before expanding nationwide. The Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories platform is now in limited use around the capital, where it centralises roughly 200 data streams to give controllers a predictive view of traffic, weather and capacity constraints.
SMART uses AI-supported analysis to map where aircraft are headed, how much traffic the system can handle and where congestion or weather could disrupt operations. FAA staff review its recommendations before action, keeping the tool in an assistive role rather than replacing human controllers. The agency’s goal is to shift from reacting to disruptions after they build into anticipating them hours, days and even weeks ahead.
The FAA expects the system to improve routing, reduce cancellations and delays, and make operations more predictable across the National Airspace System. Officials also argue that better efficiency could eventually help ease costs for travellers. Washington-area operations are the first live deployment, with the rollout to other regions to follow on a phased basis.