A group of US lawmakers has formally called on the Federal Aviation Administration to suspend its use of SMART, the AI-based air traffic control support system at the center of the agency's modernization effort.

The demand, reported by FLYING Magazine, puts congressional pressure directly on a program the FAA has presented as a pillar of its next-generation airspace infrastructure. SMART is an artificial intelligence tool intended to assist air traffic controllers; an AI-based ATC system, in plain terms, is software designed to process radar, flight-plan and traffic data and recommend control decisions, with humans retaining oversight.

The lawmakers' position is blunt: the system should not remain in operational use until its safety case is independently examined.

What does this change for the FAA?

A pause, if the FAA complies, would interrupt work the agency has framed as essential to handling rising traffic volumes with a controller workforce that remains below targeted levels. The US air traffic system has faced capacity strain for years, and automation has been the FAA's principal answer to closing the gap without a proportional hiring surge.

Congressional intervention changes the calculus. A suspension ordered or accepted under political pressure would signal that the safety certification path for AI in the ATC stack — the layered set of automated tools supporting controllers — has not satisfied overseers outside the agency. That, in turn, raises the bar for every AI-dependent program the FAA has in development or planned.

The episode also touches a broader argument now running through aviation regulation: how to certify machine-learning software whose behavior can shift as it processes new data, when certification frameworks were built for deterministic systems with fixed, testable logic.

The stakes for airlines and the network

For carriers, the practical risk is capacity. Any slowdown in ATC modernization feeds directly into flight delays, slot constraints and schedule reliability, particularly at congested hubs during peak banks. Airlines have already absorbed weather- and staffing-driven flow restrictions; a stalled automation program extends that exposure.

The FAA has not, according to the report, agreed to the pause. Whether the agency suspends SMART voluntarily, continues operation while briefing Congress, or negotiates an independent review will shape how quickly the dispute resolves.

What is certain is that the question is now on the legislative record. The FAA's next move on SMART will set a precedent for how AI is introduced — or held back — across the rest of the air traffic system.