Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit Americas 2026
Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford spoke to CAPA TV at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit Americas 2026, hosted in Charleston, about latest industry trends and company developments.
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Transcript
Bryan Bedford:So our original plan was to award the smart contract by the end of May. That may slip into the first week of June. We have 3 great competitors that are working on winning the award. It's going to be a difficult decision, but I think we'll be in a position to make it within the next 2 weeks. The process then will be to collaborate with industry to make sure they understand how the connectivity with— because this is all about advanced planning. This is about looking at fall schedules and looking at the inefficiencies and ways that we can optimize trajectories in ways that reduce controller workload and create more capacity, more efficiency. So I think our optimistic hope is that we can actually do a soft test of the system in September. But certainly we expect it to be operational before the end of the year. The beauty of having the 3 labs established at the FAA's headquarters building is we've been able to invite everybody in to see it, including our congressional representatives. So we want, you know, Congress to understand what we're trying to do. We have 3 pillars for modernization, right? We have to get the equipment, you know, out with the '70s, '80s, and '90s technology and move into the 21st century. Right. In our, in our 313 FAA facilities, get the people strategy right. And then the final piece, of course, is airspace redesign and optimization. And so we are moving on all 3 of those pillars. And SMART is just as part of that process on the airspace design side. Thank you.
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