The Federal Aviation Administration is building SMART — Strategic Management of Airspace Routing Trajectories — an AI system designed to predict and resolve flight conflicts up to 2 hours before takeoff, replacing today’s 15-minute planning window. Three contenders are vying for the contract: Palantir, Thales, and Air Space Intelligence. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the competition on April 17, with a press event scheduled for April 21.
What SMART Actually Does
Current air traffic management is reactive: controllers see conflicts as they develop, with minimal forward visibility. SMART uses high-fidelity 4D modeling (three spatial dimensions + time) to simulate trajectories and spot bottlenecks before aircraft leave the ground. The shift is from “react now” to “plan ahead.”
The FAA says the system will be operational in some form later this year — an aggressive timeline for a government aviation project.
The Three Bidders
Palantir: The Government Platform Play
Revenue guidance 2026: ~$7.2B (61% YoY growth), driven by a $10B Navy contract (July 2025) and expanding GE Aerospace/Airbus partnerships. Government revenue grew 70% YoY in Q4 2025.
Pitch: A configurable platform that ingests massive operational data and presents decision-support interfaces — no modeling expertise required. The FAA contract would extend Palantir’s government portfolio into a major civilian agency and reinforce the growth trajectory that makes it the S&P 500’s most expensive stock (~120x sales).
Thales: The Incumbent Infrastructure Owner
Track record: 85+ years supplying ATC systems to FAA and DoD. >99% of US airport instrument landing systems use Thales equipment. TopSky platform is already embedded in the infrastructure SMART must integrate with.
Advantage: Incumbent revenue base and integration depth no competitor can match. For Thales, this contract modernizes a decades-long relationship.
Air Space Intelligence (ASI): The Purpose-Built Challenger
Profile: Boston-based startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz. Flyways AI platform already manages over 40% of all US air traffic via airline partnerships, using the same 4D modeling/optimization SMART requires. Recent Joby Aviation partnership positions them at the intersection of current ATC and electric air taxi integration.
Advantage: A live, production aviation AI platform already handling a significant slice of the traffic the FAA wants to control.
Why Now: The LaGuardia Wake-Up Call
On March 22, 2025, Air Canada Express Flight 8646 collided with a fire truck on a LaGuardia runway. The controller was simultaneously handling tower and clearance delivery duties. The automated runway safety system failed to alert because it couldn’t establish a confident track when vehicles merged near the runway.
The incident crystallized what aviation has warned about for years: controllers are overworked, technology is outdated, and safety margins are thinning as traffic volumes grow.
The Modernization Context
- $12.5B appropriated by Congress for ATC modernization
- $20B more estimated to complete the overhaul
- 612 obsolete radar systems being replaced
- NOTAM system migrating to cloud
- ~1,200 new controllers hired in FY2026 so far (~half the annual target)
- DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) embedded in FAA operations, targeting “fleet security upgrades” and network comms (Project Gravitas)
The Skepticism Is Warranted
The FAA’s last major tech overhaul (NextGen) took >10 years and billions over budget. Controllers have resisted automation that threatens established workflows. Procurement timelines in government aviation are measured in years, not months. SMART’s “operational later this year” claim suggests either a genuinely compressed timeline — or a demo that falls short of full deployment.
What’s at Stake
The US ATC system manages ~45,000 flights/day across the world’s most complex airspace. Controllers are stretched thin. The tech they use predates the smartphone. The safety margins that made commercial aviation extraordinarily safe are being tested by volume growth, staffing shortages, and cascading failure modes like LaGuardia exposed.
SMART is a bet that AI can close the gap between what the system was designed for and what it’s being asked to handle. The question isn’t just who wins the contract — it’s whether any of them can deliver on the promise at the speed the FAA now demands.
Originally reported by The Next Web.
