U.S. flyers have grown used to crowded skies and frequent flight delays that slow their journeys.
Now, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is promising that the problem will abate significantly within just a couple of years as it rapidly rolls out a pair of artificial intelligence (AI)-supported solutions to manage U.S. airspace.
The FAA awarded an $875 million contract to Boston-based Air Space Intelligence (ASI) to implement its air traffic management solutions.
The FAA said the products "can house all critical data in one platform and proactively identify delays and available airspace to mitigate them days, weeks and even months in advance."
Analysts, though, caution that the FAA might be overly optimistic, especially about its plan to have the solutions fully implemented before the end of 2028, a timeline that is tethered to the end of President Donald Trump's term in office.
"I'm optimistic about the system, but I'm skeptical about the timelines," said Philip Mann, a National Airspace System specialist and consultant who spent 17 years at the FAA.
The first of the two ASI systems, called Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories, or Smart, is slated to be trialed for operational validity by the FAA this fall, with wider implementation to follow.
Smart will be an AI-supported platform that draws on data to anticipate airspace conflicts and congestion and makes recommendations to controllers about routing and departure times before flights leave the gate.
The FAA describes the other platform, called Flow Management Data and Services (FMDS) as the future backbone of the Air Traffic Control System Command Center. FMDS is expected to analyze airline schedules, historic weather patterns, airport capacity and anticipated operational constraints, such as scheduled runway construction, months ahead of time to predict traffic flows.
Mann said the FAA would use that information to work in advance with airlines to thin flight schedules at anticipated hot spots, such as Newark during the winter holiday period or Oshkosh, WI, during the annual AirVenture experimental aircraft show in late July.
Once FMDS is running, it will also be the overlying database from which Smart draws to recommend real-time actions to controllers.
The FAA says the two systems will house all critical data in one cloud-based platform, replacing the various data sources and timelines in use today. The system will be predictive and proactive, the FAA said, replacing the current reactive process.
Mann said that if the system works as advertised, travelers will experience fewer delays. And when there are weather delays, better planning should result in those delays being more localized instead of reverberating across the airspace system.
"There may, in some cases, be fewer available flights just because they're not allowing people to schedule flights in areas that can't handle weather," he said.
Margaret Wallace, a former U.S. Air Force air traffic controller who now teaches at the Florida Institute of Technology, said she expects the Air systems to assist the Air Traffic Control (ATC) System Command Center by replacing manual processes with automation. They should enable more effective use of airspace, including improved re-routings to avoid storms and turbulence.
However, she said she was surprised by the FAA's decision in May to reduce its overall controller staffing target by more than 2,000, to 12,563, in 2028. In making the change, the agency cited technology improvements among its reasons.
Smart and FMDS are part of a much broader air traffic control system overhaul that U.S. Department of Transportation secretary Sean Duffy has said will be complete by the end of 2028.
Last year, Congress provided $12.5 billion toward the overhaul. Advocates say at least another $19 billion is needed to fully fund the program.
Wallace said the staffing target should only have been reduced once new technology is proven.
Will airlines buy in?
A potential sticking point for Smart and FMDS is airline buy-in, especially when there is proactive flight cutting from the FAA.
For now, airlines are on board. In a statement last month, Airlines for America said the program is an encouraging step forward.
An FAA spokesperson said the agency is working now with airlines to ensure implementation of a procedural approach to airspace management that is fair for all carriers.
Mann said his timeline concerns center around the interconnectedness of the many projects that are part of the ATC overhaul. For Smart and FMDS to achieve their full capabilities, new aircraft tracking systems, improved weather detection, advanced fiber-optic lines and more must all be completed and proven out. Getting all of that done in two years is unlikely, he said.
But not all analysts believe a centralized FAA solution is even the direction to take.
Michael Baiada, a former United Airlines pilot whose ATH Group sells software designed to help airlines better manage their own flight operations, compared those operations to a production line.
It's the airlines themselves, he said, that are best positioned to manage their own flight queues.
Turning that production line over to the FAA through the Smart system, Baiada said, will baseline everyone to the lowest level.
"It's just bad business from an airline to abdicate control of a primary asset to a government," Baiada said.
This story originally appeared in Travel Weekly.