The Federal Aviation Administration is the Department of Transportation agency responsible for civil aviation safety, air traffic control, and airspace regulation. It appears in AI policy chiefly as a deployer: since 2024 the agency has run its data and much of its technology stack through Palantir's Foundry platform, and its air-traffic-control modernization program has directed the large majority of new software funding toward contractors rather than personnel. The FAA is also the regulator whose beyond-visual-line-of-sight rules gate commercial drone deployment (see Transportation — AI Deployment).
Palantir Foundry as data substrate
According to a Verge account published August 18, 2026, the FAA has run its data and much of its technology stack through Palantir's Foundry platform since 2024, and awarded the company a contract during 2026 for an "ontology-driven Foundry Operating System." Palantir had earlier won no-bid contracts for an AI runway collision-avoidance tool and for adding AI to the FAA's grants system (Source: theverge.com).
The same account reports that Palantir was one of three finalists for the $875 million SMART national airspace system contract. That award went to Air Space Intelligence, a Boston startup whose executive team includes four Palantir alumni (Source: theverge.com). The Department of Transportation announced the award on June 22, 2026: a 12-year contract worth up to $875 million covering both the Flow Management Data & Services (FMDS) platform and the SMART enhancement, with an initial operational SMART deployment targeted for fall 2026 (Source: prnewswire.com).
Air-traffic-control modernization funding
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act authorized $12.5 billion in supplemental funding in July 2025 for an air traffic control overhaul. Of that, roughly $5 billion is dedicated to software and none to personnel (Source: theverge.com).
Controller staffing
The FAA finished 2025 with 14,832 air traffic controllers and expects to lose 1,711 of them during 2026. In May 2026 it revised its full staffing target downward to 12,563 from 14,633, citing AI and improved scheduling practices as the basis for the lower figure (Source: theverge.com). The revision is an instance of an agency booking projected AI productivity gains into a headcount target before the systems producing them are in service; see AI Labor Disruption and Government AI Procurement.
Relationships
- deployed-by: Palantir Technologies — Foundry platform, the Foundry Operating System contract, and the earlier no-bid runway-collision-avoidance and grants tools.
- related: DOT — Department of Transportation (AI Deployer) — parent department.
- related: Transportation — AI Deployment — the FAA's BVLOS rules are the binding constraint on commercial drone deployment.
- related: Government AI Procurement — the contracting pattern this deployment sits within.