A commercial jet approaches the runway at Ronald Reagan International Airport near the Washington Monument and the airport terminal in Arlington, Va., on Feb. 2, 2025.
ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images
The Transportation Department’s request to receive an additional $30 billion from Congress to push its massive air traffic control modernization project across the finish line would include new funding to finish overhauling existing IT systems and deploying new artificial intelligence capabilities. Reactions to the recent rollout of new AI capabilities at Washington, D.C.-region airports, however, have underscored some of the broader national concerns about relying more on advanced technologies, with officials having to go out of their way to ease worries about the tools.Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration, which is overseeing the ambitious effort to modernize management of U.S. airspace, announced on Sept. 21 that they officially rolled out a new AI-powered tool for Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Dulles International Airport and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport that combines 200 different data streams into one system that can provide better flight traffic management. FAA said at the time that the Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories — or SMART — tool synthesizes information like flight paths and weather patterns “to provide a comprehensive visualization of where planes are going, how much traffic the system can handle, and where congestion or weather could cause challenges.”During a Monday press conference announcing the department’s request for $30 billion, Transportation Secretary Duffy cited SMART’s recent deployment and said it is “giving different tools to be predictive in what we not just see at this moment, but what we see in the future, because we want to deliver better for the American people, reduce their delays and reduce their cancelations.”Duffy added, however, that while
Government Executive · October 5, 2026
