The FAA’s Flight-Rerouting AI Is Now Switched On Nationwide

The Federal Aviation Administration’s artificial-intelligence routing tool has gone national. The agency told Flying Magazine on November 10 that SMART, short for Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories, is now active in all 22 U.S. air route traffic control centers. The system launched around Washington, D.C., on September 21 and then expanded to the Jacksonville, Miami and Atlanta centers before reaching the rest of the country. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said full deployment will be completed in phases by spring 2027.

SMART is a cloud-based platform that pulls together about 200 data streams, including weather, flight paths, traffic flows and controller staffing. FAA specialists in Washington use it to recommend routing and scheduling changes, which air traffic controllers can accept or decline. The FAA says it has helped reroute about 180 flights so far, saving an average of roughly 10 minutes and 80 gallons of fuel per flight. In one example cited by Duffy, a Fort Lauderdale departure with 119 passengers avoided a 33-minute delay after being routed around forecast storms.

Not everyone is convinced. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association has said it was not involved in designing, testing or implementing SMART and cannot speak to its effect on controllers. More than two dozen congressional Democrats asked the FAA to pause the program and answer questions about testing and oversight. Airlines have been more positive: American Airlines chief executive Robert Isom has said the tool could make better use of airspace, especially during bad weather.

For passengers, the effect is modest for now. About 180 rerouted flights is a tiny share of the tens of thousands of U.S. flights operated every day, and the changes happen behind the scenes, so a shorter route will not show up as a separate notice in your airline app. The bigger promise is fewer weather-related ground stops and delays during the winter storm season. Until that is proven, holiday travellers should still build in buffers for tight connections.

Sources: Deep Arrival, General Aviation News