US FAA Administrator: 'We've got a real opportunity to do something transformational with AI'

US FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, speaking at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit Americas, confirmed (28-May-2026) the FAA is developing a strategic management of aviation grid and trajectories (SMART) system, in partnership with Thales, Palantir and Airspace Intelligence. The system would use AI and digital twin technology of the US National Airspace System to predict air traffic flows and optimise airline schedules and aircraft deconfliction. Mr Bedford stated: "For the SMART system, we challenged three vendors essentially to bring machine learning into the design and construction of how those trajectories would be managed and all three of them built digital twins for us... all three of them are producing representations of how the airspace actually works at about a 96% confidence level". Mr Bedford added: "All the airspace users today essentially schedule however they want and it's a free for all that ultimately the FAA and frankly the controller in a facility has to sort out. We can do a much better job of sorting that out on the front end". Mr Bedford concluded: "What if we could look at the schedule, say, in September, deconflict it and optimise those trajectories, removing all of the block hour pads that are in there? The savings on that schedule is about a billion USD a month just in terms of crew cost, fuel, fuel savings and maintenance. So I think we've got a real opportunity to do something transformational with AI". [more - Aviation Week]