FAA SMART: What Dispatchers Need to Know

Image: SMART Center rendering, published by the FAA.

On September 21, 2026, the FAA began limited operations of SMART—the Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes, and Trajectories program—in the airspace around Washington, DC, including DCA, IAD, and BWI.

SMART is a cloud-based, AI-supported traffic flow planning tool developed by Air Space Intelligence under a 12-year contract awarded in June. It enhances the Flow Management Data and Services program, which is replacing the legacy Traffic Flow Management System at the Command Center.

In practical terms, SMART brings together airline schedules, weather, airport capacity, airspace conditions, and operational constraints to anticipate where demand will exceed capacity and recommend adjustments to routes and departure times. You can read more in the FAA’s SMART fact sheet.

This initial rollout is a trial. The FAA and DOT are evaluating the technology and developing the procedures that will guide its use.

SMART is designed around three phases of flight:

• Plan: Identifies schedule and capacity imbalances days or months ahead.
• Push: Recommends trajectories and routes before departure.
• Fly: Addresses airborne adjustments, including reroutes, sequencing, speed, altitude, and controlled times of arrival.

The FAA is starting with Push, using a limited set of pre-departure reroutes through the existing reroute process. Plan is running in shadow mode, with airborne reroutes expected to follow later.

SMART is advisory. Traffic managers at the Command Center accept or decline its recommendations. Existing traffic management initiatives and required routes still govern, and controllers remain responsible for separation.

Through the end of 2026, the FAA intends to evaluate SMART and develop operational procedures with airlines, including tabletop exercises with individual carriers. The planned rollout moves from the National Capital Region to the Atlanta and Jacksonville centers, then Texas, the West, and finally New York before summer 2027.

If nothing has changed on your desk, that is expected. In this first phase, dispatchers should see little or no change in how they interact with FAA systems and processes.

ADF has been engaged on SMART since it was announced. In July, we published our position on artificial intelligence and the SMART program. In August, ADF officers attended a SMART lab demonstration at FAA headquarters with the FAA and Air Space Intelligence. We continue to work with the FAA’s SMART team.

Our position is straightforward: we welcome technology that improves safety, efficiency, and situational awareness in the National Airspace System. We believe AI can become a valuable tool for our profession. It must support the operational judgment of certificated aircraft dispatchers and preserve the joint operational control we share with the pilot in command.

Optimizing the NAS is not the same as optimizing an airline’s operation. Dispatchers must have a meaningful voice in how SMART is designed, integrated, and developed.

There is still much to learn. We have raised questions with the FAA about how recommendations will reach dispatchers, how supporting weather and constraint data will be validated, how impacts will be balanced across carriers, and what airline integration will require. We are also asking how dispatcher authority and workload will be accounted for as recommendations begin to flow from the Command Center.

We will keep asking those questions—and we need your input.

If SMART shows up on your desk through a reroute, a company briefing, or a new procedure, please share your experience at [email protected]. Your firsthand observations are among the most valuable inputs ADF can bring to the FAA.

We will continue this conversation at the Summit in Indianapolis on September 28–30, 2026 and keep you informed as the program expands.

Miguel Reyes
President, Airline Dispatchers Federation