Department.Technology

Tag: Workforce Engagement

  • Build It With the Controllers: The Danger of Rolling Out SMART Without NATCA

    By the Founders, Department of Technology | San Diego, California | November 15, 2026

    The FAA is using MI (Machine Intelligence, aka AI or Artificial Intelligence) to help manage the nation’s airspace. The tool, called SMART, began limited operation around Washington, D.C. on September 21 and was expanded to all 22 air route traffic control centers on November 10, three days before the November 13 ground stop. The union that represents air traffic controllers says it had no part in designing, testing, or implementing it.

    We are not claiming that SMART is unsafe, or that it caused the ground stop. Officials say it did not, and the cause has not been confirmed. Our claim is narrower: when a critical system is rolled out without the people who use it every day, the risks go up, and the cost of avoiding them is small. This is the third post in our series. Our first post asked what accountable technology leadership would have changed, and our second asked what should be settled before $50 billion is spent.

    What we know so far

    Here is what has been reported. Most of the reporting on the union’s role dates from September.

    • The rollout. The FAA began limited use of SMART in the Washington area in September. It told FLYING that SMART was active in all 22 centers as of November 10, and AeroTime reported that the expansion came after lawmakers had sought a pause in the Washington-area rollout.
    • The union’s position. In September, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) said it had not been involved in the design, testing, or implementation of SMART and could not speak to its effect on the workforce, as NPR reported. FLYING reported that the union stressed that new technology should complement controllers’ judgment, not replace it.
    • A lawmaker’s account. Rep. Don Beyer called on the FAA to suspend SMART at Washington-area airports until controller feedback and independent stress testing showed it was safe. He said he had been told that controllers were not consulted on its design and development, were not trained on it before it went live, and had been told it can adjust schedules and potentially even routes, according to Common Dreams. That is his account, and we have not seen the FAA respond to it directly.
    • The FAA’s description. The FAA says SMART cannot replace controllers or take over an aircraft, and that every recommendation is reviewed by FAA staff, with local leadership free to accept or pass, per MeriTalk. The agency credits the Washington rollout with saving an average of 10 minutes per rerouted flight, according to AeroTime.
    • The ground stop. Officials said Friday’s outage was not related to SMART, as the Taos News reported, and we have no reason to doubt that.

    What we do not know

    Several basic questions are still open.

    • Whether the FAA consulted controllers or facility leaders in other ways. To our knowledge, the agency has not described what consultation took place.
    • Whether NATCA has been brought in since September. We found no union statement on the November expansion.
    • What testing was finished before the expansion, and what criteria had to be met first. Airways noted that the FAA’s November statement does not explain how its savings were calculated, give a comparison baseline, or report how often facilities accepted recommendations.
    • The cause of the ground stop, which has not been confirmed.

    Five dangers of skipping the people who use the system

    Everything in this section is our analysis, not reporting.

    1. A human review is only as good as the reviewer’s understanding

    The FAA stresses that staff review every SMART recommendation. That safeguard depends on people who understand what the tool is doing, trust it enough to use it, and doubt it enough to challenge it. People who were not involved in building or testing a tool, and who may not have been trained on it, are more likely to accept its output without question or to ignore it altogether. Either outcome defeats the purpose of keeping a human in the loop.

    2. Designers miss what operators know

    Controllers know how traffic really moves at their facilities, where the workarounds are, and what a recommendation looks like in the middle of a busy shift. That knowledge rarely makes it into a specification. Bringing it in during design is far cheaper than discovering its absence after go-live.

    3. Mixed messages about what the tool does

    The FAA describes SMART as advisory. According to Beyer, controllers were told it can adjust schedules and possibly routes. We cannot say which description is right, and the gap itself is the danger. In a safety-critical workplace, people need to know exactly what a tool can and cannot do, and who has the final say. A joint design and review process is how those answers get written down and shared.

    4. Speed without a shared record of what was learned

    About seven weeks passed between the first Washington-area use on September 21 and the nationwide expansion on November 10. A staged rollout is a sound idea, but a stage only teaches something if the results are examined, ideally by people with independent standing. As noted above, we have not seen public figures on how often facilities accepted SMART’s recommendations. Union representatives who help review each stage, against criteria agreed in advance, would give the process a credibility that an internal sign-off alone cannot.

    5. Goodwill is scarce, and so is public trust

    The FAA is still thousands of certified controllers short of full staffing, and many work mandatory overtime and grueling schedules, according to NPR. Asking a stretched workforce to adopt a major new tool it did not help shape spends goodwill the agency can ill afford. And when something goes wrong, as it did on November 13, a thin public record of how the tool was vetted leaves room for speculation. Headlines linked the ground stop to the SMART expansion the same day, even though officials said the two were unrelated. A visible partnership with the controllers’ union would have been part of the answer to that question.

    What investing the time would look like

    None of this requires slowing the work to a crawl. Based on the problems above, these are the steps we would suggest. They are our proposals, not the FAA’s plan.

    • An early invitation. Bring the union into design review before a system is built, and into testing before it goes live.
    • Training before go-live. Train every controller and traffic manager who will see the tool’s output, and give them a clear written statement of what it can and cannot do.
    • Joint review at each stage. Agree in advance on the criteria for moving from one stage to the next, and have the union help review the results.
    • A public report. Publish what was tested, what was found, and what changed, including how often recommendations were accepted or passed.

    Where reasonable people disagree

    Supporters of the current approach point to the staged rollout, the FAA’s reported savings, and the fact that SMART is advisory and reviewed by FAA staff. Airlines for America praised the push to modernize, according to NPR. Skeptics, including Beyer, argue that a tool with safety implications should be vetted with controller feedback and independent testing first. We think both sides have a point. Inviting the union in is not the same as giving it a veto, and it does not have to be slow. It is a way of finding problems early, while they are cheap to fix.

    Where a Department of Technology fits, and where it does not

    A Department of Technology would not design SMART, run air traffic control, or negotiate with NATCA. As described in our federal framework, it would audit major technology initiatives, require impact assessments, and report to Congress and the public. We would add one requirement that goes beyond the written framework: for any major system that changes how safety-critical workers do their jobs, the sponsoring agency must document how those workers and their representatives were consulted before rollout. That ties together two arguments we have already made: that changes should be tested before they go live, as in our first post, and that leaders should understand how systems work in practice, as in Back to Basics.

    Questions for officials and candidates

    1. Was NATCA invited to help design, test, or review SMART before the September launch, and before the November expansion? If not, why not?
    2. What testing and review had to be completed before SMART was expanded to all 22 centers, and who signed off?
    3. How were controllers trained on SMART, and what were they told it can and cannot do?
    4. How often do facilities accept or pass on SMART’s recommendations, and will that data be made public?
    5. Will you commit to involving the workforce and its representatives in design and testing for the next major system?

    The bottom line

    A tool that helps manage the nation’s airspace should be built with the people who keep planes apart, not delivered to them. The time and goodwill it takes to invite the union in are small compared with the cost of losing the trust of the workforce, or the public, in a system everyone depends on. Whether or not SMART had anything to do with November 13, the lesson is the same one running through this series: name who is responsible, test before you go live, and show your work.

    Read the rest of this series: The November 13 Ground Stop: What a Department of Technology Would Have Done Differently and Fiber First? The Questions to Ask Before $50 Billion for Air Traffic Control For the basics of our proposal, read What Is a Department of Technology? We will update this post as more is reported, including any response from the FAA or NATCA.