Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has backed the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) new AI-enabled tool to help manage air traffic, reducing delays and cancellations, but assuring that humans will have oversight.

Humans in Control

In a series of posts on the social media platform X on Tuesday, Duffy touted the 'Strategic Management of Airspace Routes & Trajectories (SMART),' saying that the new AI tool would be pulling '200 data streams into 1 platform' as well as helping prevent 'delays & cancellations before they happen' while reducing the pressure on air traffic controllers.

'This is the most advanced air traffic management system in the world,' he said, crediting President Donald Trump for helping the Department of Transportation (DOT) enable the system. Duffy said the system would initially operate in the Washington region before gradually expanding to other parts of the country.

In a separate post, Duffy quoted a post from Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), which called on the FAA to suspend the use of the SMART AI tool in the national capital region, saying that the 'FAA should not use my constituents as guinea pigs for an unproven AI air traffic control system that has Americans' lives in its hands.'

Duffy, in a news interview clip shared with the post, called Beyer's comments 'complete stupidity,' saying that the predictive nature of the software will help predict disruptions and help aircraft fly safely. Duffy said that the software will help make landings efficient so that aircraft do not have to circle the airport, waiting for the runway to clear.

'It's a tool that's used to better manage traffic,' Duffy said, reaffirming that air traffic controllers will 'always manage the airspace.' In the post's caption, Duffy reassured that humans will 'control the airspace' and that the FAA was 'giving air traffic controllers new technology and better data to make critical decisions.'

FAA Outage

On Monday, there were at least 7,000 flight cancellations or delays after the FAA said that there were telecommunications snags, after Duffy said that an Amtrak crew had cut into telecom lines, which the railroad company denied. Duffy then issued an update, saying that the communications lines had been restored.