FAA and DOT unveil AI tool to forecast airspace congestion

US Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford have presented a new tool: Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories, or SMART. Built around artificial intelligence, the platform pulls operational data into a single place to anticipate congestion, reduce delays and make flights more efficient nationwide.

According to the presentation, SMART centralizes 200 separate data streams on one unified platform. The information processed includes weather patterns, flight paths and routes, air traffic flow, and controller staffing metrics.

An AI-backed engine synthesizes those streams, giving aviation specialists a complete picture of where aircraft are heading, how much traffic the system can absorb, and where weather or saturation could cause problems. From that picture, staff can project future conditions and issue preventive recommendations before issues arise.

The agency describes a shift from a reactive model to a predictive one. At the start of each day, thousands of scheduled flights face structural delays because demand exceeds airport capacity. Simultaneous operations in a single sector build congestion, and adverse weather can shrink the available airspace, forcing diversions or the closure of wide sectors. Traditionally, that left the FAA operating reactively.

SMART is intended to change that. Rather than waiting for saturation to occur, the system processes data to help the aviation authority anticipate demand, weather and the limits of the airspace.