FAA awards SMART Air Traffic contract to Air Space Intelligence, beating Palantir and Thales. DroneXL may earn a commission when you buy through links on its site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Photo: DroneXL The Federal Aviation Administration awarded a 12-year, $875 million contract to Air Space Intelligence to build the predictive air traffic management software it has been developing in stealth for the better part of a year. The Boston startup beat two larger competitors, Palantir Technologies and Thales, for the work. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford announced the award on June 22, 2026. Video Muted The FAA detailed the award in a June 22 newsroom release, with ASI confirming the 12-year term and contract value in its own announcement the same day. The contract covers two systems. Flow Management Data and Services, or FMDS, replaces the FAA's existing Traffic Flow Management System and becomes the data backbone of the agency's Air Traffic Control System Command Center. Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes, and Trajectories, or SMART, runs as a capability inside FMDS and flags congestion before aircraft leave the ground. Initial SMART operations are planned for this fall. When DroneXL first reported the three-way SMART competition in April, ASI was the smallest and least obvious pick. It is also the one that already had working software in production. ASI brought production software instead of a development promise. ASI separated itself from Palantir and Thales by walking in with a platform already running at scale. Its Flyways AI system supports flight routing and traffic management for Alaska Airlines, Delta, and United, and the company claims it touches more than 40 percent of U.S. air traffic. Flyways also runs operational planning for the U.S. Air Force and Indo-Pacific Command. That 40 percent figure is ASI's own marketing number, and it deserves a closer look than the headlines gave it. Being available to dispatchers at three large carriers is not the same as actively routing 40 percent of national traffic. The claim describes reach, not control. It is a real differentiator over a pure development bid, but the gap between a tool dispatchers can consult and a tool that manages the airspace is exactly the gap this contract has to close. The track record is still the whole pitch. ASI says it invested close to $100 million of its own money building the platform before the FAA award, which let it enter the program with deployable technology rather than a multi-year custom build. The company is headquartered in Boston and backed by Andreessen Horowitz. FAA modernization programs have historically died in exactly the gap ASI claims to skip: the years between contract signing and a working system. NextGen took two decades and still is not finished. The manned traffic layer is the real blocker for drone integration. SMART is a tool for managing airliners, not drones, but the downstream effect on uncrewed flight is what makes it matter to this audience. Routine BVLOS operations at scale depend on an air traffic system that can see conflicts coming hours out instead of minutes. Today's reactive structure cannot absorb thousands of daily drone flight plans on top of manned traffic. A predictive layer can. This is the same integration problem that sits underneath every delayed piece of drone policy, from the Part 108 BVLOS rule to UTM and low-altitude corridors. Operators like Reliable Robotics, which is pushing the FAA toward its first commercial uncrewed cargo certification, are betting on the manned side of the house modernizing on roughly the same timeline. SMART is a piece of that. DroneXL's take. I'll take the win on this one, and I'll be honest about the part I got wrong. In April, I wrote that by the end of Q3 2026 the FAA would name a single prime contractor for SMART, not a split award, and that it would be Palantir or ASI rather than the establishment pick Thales. The award landed in June, ahead of schedule, single prime, ASI. Bedford broke from the traditional FAA procurement playbook, exactly as the pattern suggested he would. The second half of that April call, that the winner would be handed UTM-to-ATC integration scope within 18 months, has not happened and is not in this contract. That piece is still outstanding, and I'm not going to pretend the prediction was cleaner than it was. Here is the part the celebration press releases skip. ASI's own statements and the trade coverage both flag what the FAA has not explained: there is no public account of how an AI routing system gets certified for safety before it runs national airspace, and no detail on how controllers' existing workflows survive a 12-to-24-month transition. "Move fast with production software" is a genuine advantage over NextGen-style paralysis. It is also a phrase that should make anyone pause when the software in question sits inside safety-critical infrastructure that planes and, eventually, drones depend on. There is one more stakeholder the announcement talks past. Every official quote praises software that "eases controller workload," and that language has historically preceded fights over headcount and automation. The controllers' union has an obvious interest in how this rolls out, and treating the efficiency framing as politically neutral is a mistake. It isn't. One vendor, one airspace, one company to hold accountable. That was the bet in April, and the FAA just placed it. The fall 2026 initial deployment is the first real test. Watch whether that date holds, because the safety validation work behind it will tell you far more than the contract value does. Now ASI has to prove the production-software story scales from a number on a slide to the entire National Airspace System without breaking the gold-standard safety record everyone keeps invoking. Sources: FAA Newsroom, Air Space Intelligence (PR Newswire), Reuters. DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Editor-in-Chief Haye Kesteloo is the Editor in Chief and Founder of DroneXL.co, where he covers all drone-related news, DJI rumors and writes drone reviews, and of EVXL.co, for all electric vehicle news. Haye can be reached at haye @ dronexl.co or @hayekesteloo.

FAA Takes to the Skies with AI-Powered Solutions to Enhance Safety and Efficiency. In a bid to modernize the nation's aging air traffic systems, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has unveiled a suite of innovative AI tools designed to tackle persistent issues with flight safety and congestion. This development comes on the heels of a revised budget request by Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, which emphasizes the importance of AI in shaping the future of air travel. At the forefront of this initiative is Foundry, an AI model developed by defense contractor Palantir, which will analyze data from various federal and external sources to identify patterns and hotspots that contribute to airport safety concerns. By synthesizing this data, Foundry aims to provide actionable insights that can inform new guidance, investments, and upgrades to enhance safety standards. The FAA has also partnered with Boston-based Air Space Intelligence (ASI) to create AI models that predict and mitigate traffic congestion. ASI's Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes, and Trajectories (SMART) system will integrate with the FAA's Flow Management Data and Services (FMDS) to optimize air traffic control and reduce delays. By leveraging AI to analyze real-time data on weather, airport construction, and runway closures, SMART promises to streamline air traffic management and minimize holding patterns. While the introduction of AI in air traffic control raises important questions about safety and oversight, the FAA is taking a staged approach to implementation, with the initial rollout focusing on traffic above 24,000 feet. As the aviation industry watches with bated breath, the success of these AI-powered solutions will depend on their ability to strike a balance between innovation and caution, ultimately enhancing the safety and efficiency of America's skies. dArt Studio installs AI for local businesses in Broward & Palm Beach County, FL. dArt Studio reply within 1 business hour.

FAA awards ASI $875M contract for Air Traffic management modernization. * Air Space Intelligence has won an $875 million FAA contract to modernize the National Airspace System with software and AI capabilities * The 12-year deal covers deployment of two platforms: FMDS, which will anchor the FAA's Air Traffic Control System Command Center, and SMART, which manages traffic demand before flights take off * The FAA says the tools will cut delays, improve traffic flow and boost airspace capacity by uniting operational data and predictive modeling Air Space Intelligence has secured an $875 million contract from the Federal Aviation Administration to provide software and artificial intelligence capabilities supporting the modernization of the National Airspace System. What will ASI deliver under the FAA contract? The 12-year award covers deployment of the FAA's Flow Management Data and Services, or FMDS, platform, which will serve as the technology backbone of the FAA's Air Traffic Control System Command Center, and Strategic Management of Airspace, Routing and Trajectories, or SMART, an advanced capability within FMDS designed to help manage air traffic demand before flights depart, ASI said Monday. According to the FAA, the technologies will help reduce delays, improve traffic flow and increase airspace capacity by combining operational data, predictive modeling and decision-support tools into a unified platform. SMART continuously analyzes airline schedules, weather conditions, airport capacity, airspace constraints and other operational factors to identify potential congestion and recommend more efficient routing and scheduling decisions. FMDS provides the data and traffic flow analysis used to support those decisions. "We're thrilled to partner with ASI to begin developing these two new software platforms. Once implemented, we will fundamentally reshape how the airspace is managed - slashing thousands of delays and cancellations in the process," said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. How does the award support FAA modernization efforts? The award represents the latest step in the FAA's broader effort to modernize air traffic control infrastructure and operations. Earlier this year, the FAA awarded contracts to RTX and Indra to replace hundreds of aging radar systems across the national airspace system. In December 2025, the Department of Transportation selected Peraton as prime integrator for a broader air traffic control modernization initiative focused on telecommunications networks, software, hardware and other core infrastructure. Under the new FMDS and SMART contract, ASI will support the FAA's effort to build a new air traffic control system that integrates operational data, predictive analytics and traffic management capabilities. The FAA has targeted an initial operational deployment of SMART in fall 2026. What experience does ASI bring to the program? ASI said its Flyways AI platform is already supporting flight routing, air traffic management and safety operations across a significant portion of U.S. domestic air travel. The company's technology is also used by the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command to support mission planning and operational decision-making. "ASI has spent years building and proving our technology in the most demanding operational environments in American aviation with the major airlines and the Department of War," said Bernard Asare, president of civil aviation at ASI. "We have invested nearly $100 million of our own resources to develop a platform that is operational today, and we are honored to bring that same proven capability to the FAA and to the American people at national scale," he added.