The federal government is making a major move to drag America’s air traffic control system into the 21st century, and artificial intelligence is at the center of the plan.
The Federal Aviation Administration has selected three companies to compete for a contract to build a groundbreaking AI-powered air traffic management platform. The program goes by the name Strategic Management of Airspace Routing Trajectories — SMART for short.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford is personally driving the initiative, treating it as a cornerstone of the agency’s sweeping airspace modernization campaign.
The three firms now squaring off for the contract are Palantir Technologies, Thales SA, and Airspace Intelligence. Each arrives at the competition with a distinct resume.
Thales carries more than 85 years of history supplying air traffic management systems to both the FAA and the Department of Defense. The company’s equipment powers more than 99% of instrument landing systems at American airports.
Palantir, the data analytics powerhouse with deep roots in federal contracting, has already secured a foothold at the agency. On April 9, the FAA Logistics Center issued a sole-source justification for a data modernization and AI integration project, determining that Palantir was the only responsible source capable of delivering the work without unacceptable delays to cost, schedule, or performance.
The company wasted no time confirming its position. Palantir released a statement to investors confirming it had secured a contract with the FAA to deliver a data analytics tool in support of the agency’s aviation safety modernization objectives.
The FAA spelled out what it expects SMART to deliver. “We are going to revolutionize our air traffic management by modernizing our software, moving to a centralized cloud-based software system that will use artificial intelligence to predict air traffic flows and adjust departure times to resolve conflicts,” the agency said in a statement according to Bloomberg.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy took the program public at a Semafor World Economy Summit event. He told attendees that the software would notify controllers to adjust a flight path “an hour and a half or two hours before the conflict even happens.”
That window represents a dramatic expansion from the roughly 15-minute planning horizon controllers currently work with.
Duffy later expanded on the system’s capabilities in a CBS News interview. He explained that SMART would allow flight controllers to identify and resolve scheduling conflicts as far as 45 days in advance, making small adjustments to departure times — sometimes just five to ten minutes — to prevent delays before passengers ever reach the gate.
The secretary made one thing clear about the technology’s boundaries. Duffy stated the software would not replace humans in managing the airspace.
The leader of the nation’s air traffic controllers union reinforced that point directly. Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, described what SMART is actually designed to do.
“Humans will separate airplanes,” Daniels said, according to Flying Magazine. “Humans will be responsible for human lives. What we haven’t had is a system that helps us manage the [NAS] before the day even begins.”
Daniels described how the tool would free up controllers to handle the most critical moments of their job. He said the system could give “controllers more time to focus on the critical things that happen — an emergency, an aircraft that’s running low on fuel, a weather system that’s rolling in.”
The money behind the effort tells a story of its own. Congress has allocated $12.5 billion toward the air traffic control overhaul, but the FAA says completing the job will require roughly $20 billion more.
The full modernization program carries a price tag of approximately $32.5 billion and encompasses the replacement of 612 aging radar systems alongside the hiring of around 1,200 new controllers during fiscal year 2026.
Officials say SMART could become operational in some form before the year is out. The competition among Palantir, Thales, and Airspace Intelligence continues as the FAA moves toward naming a contractor.
