Walkaround

Today in aviation

Air traffic control

The FAA switches on its AI traffic planner over Washington

SMART begins testing around Reagan National, Dulles and Baltimore today, reading schedules, weather and airspace together to predict where traffic will bunch up.

21 September 2026

The FAA begins testing SMART, its new traffic management system, around Washington as early as today. It will initially support flights serving Reagan National, Dulles and Baltimore Washington International.

SMART stands for Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories. It is a cloud based platform that sits on top of the FAA's existing traffic management systems and reads airline schedules, weather, airport capacity and airspace constraints together, then predicts where traffic will bunch up and flags conflicts before they happen. The agency says it can look more than 45 days ahead and will recommend small changes to flight times to hold delays down.

It was built by Air Space Intelligence under a 12 year contract worth 875 million dollars, announced on 22 June 2026 by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford.

In plain terms

This is a planning tool, not an autopilot. SMART does not control aircraft and does not replace controllers. It proposes schedule and routing adjustments, and people decide whether to accept them.

Sources