But they do require better coordination.
That is where predictive systems could become increasingly valuable.
The more crowded the system becomes, the more difficult it is to manage each operation independently.
A network-level view becomes essential.
SMART's purpose is fundamentally to provide that view.
The 90-Day Experiment
The first Washington deployment should therefore be viewed as an experiment with very high stakes but a deliberately limited scope.
The FAA can compare predictions with what actually happens.
It can evaluate how often congestion is identified early.
It can measure whether recommended changes reduce delays.
It can examine whether airlines can incorporate recommendations effectively.
It can identify situations where the AI produces predictions that need additional human interpretation.
And it can discover operational problems that would be much harder to identify after a nationwide deployment.
That is one of the advantages of starting small.
A controlled rollout creates an opportunity to learn.
The airlines' push for a “crawl, walk, run” approach reflects that philosophy.
The FAA can test the technology without immediately making it responsible for the entire country's traffic-management environment.
What Success Would Look Like
Success will probably not mean that delays disappear.
That is unrealistic.
A successful system would instead make disruptions less severe and more predictable.
It might help prevent a small problem from becoming a large one.
It might help airlines avoid unnecessary holding.
It might help traffic managers anticipate weather-related capacity reductions.
It might help airports recover more quickly after a disruption.
And it might allow existing airspace capacity to be used more efficiently.
The FAA's stated goals include fewer delays and cancellations, improved efficiency, better on-time performance and faster recovery from disruptions.
Those outcomes will ultimately have to be demonstrated through operational data.
The technology's promise is not enough.
The real test is whether the system consistently improves the network.
What Passengers Should Expect
For most travelers, SMART should be invisible.
That may actually be the best sign that it is working.
Passengers are unlikely to notice an algorithm preventing a congestion event.
They will not know that a departure time was adjusted because the system predicted a bottleneck three hours later.
They will not see an alternate route recommendation that prevented their aircraft from joining a holding pattern.
They may simply arrive on time.
That is the ultimate goal of much aviation infrastructure.
The best systems are often the ones passengers never notice.
A New Layer of Intelligence
The FAA's SMART rollout marks a significant change in the way the agency approaches air-traffic management.
It does not represent the replacement of human controllers with artificial intelligence.
It represents the addition of a predictive layer designed to help people see farther ahead.
The system combines hundreds of information streams.
It analyzes traffic, weather, airport capacity and other operational conditions.
It predicts where problems could emerge.
It recommends ways to respond before those problems spread.
And it does all of that while leaving final operational responsibility with human aviation professionals.
That combination—machine prediction with human authority—is likely to define the early years of AI in air traffic control.
The FAA is not asking an algorithm to fly the nation's airplanes.
It is asking an algorithm to help the people managing those airplanes see the future a little sooner.
And that may be the most important idea behind SMART.
The goal is not to replace the human at the center of the air-traffic system.
The goal is to give that human a better picture of what is coming.
Washington is now the first major test.
For roughly 90 days, the FAA will watch what happens when artificial intelligence moves from demonstrations and planning documents into the real-world flow of commercial aviation.
If the predictions prove useful, if airlines can work with the recommendations, and if controllers find the additional information valuable, the experiment could become the foundation for a much broader transformation.
By the end of 2028, the FAA envisions SMART reaching much farther across the National Airspace System.
For passengers, the result could be something remarkably ordinary:
fewer disruptions, smoother traffic and more predictable flights.
Behind that ordinary experience, however, could be an increasingly sophisticated network of algorithms, weather models, flight trajectories and human decisions working together.
The airplanes will still be flown by pilots.
Controllers will still be responsible for separation.
But the system managing the flow around them will have learned to look farther ahead.
And on September 21, 2026, over Washington, D.C., that future officially began.