Surf Air Mobility Signs FAA MOA to Join SMART Program Using Palantir-Powered SurfOS Platform

Surf Air Mobility (NYSE: SRFM) has signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration to participate in the FAA's Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes, and Trajectories (SMART) program. The company said its SurfOS software operating system, which it describes as powered by Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR), forms part of its technical basis for participating in the FAA's evaluation of tools to modernize management of the National Airspace System.

SMART sits within the FAA's broader air traffic management automation initiative known as the Brand-New Air Traffic Control System (BNATCS). The program is designed to give controllers, the FAA, and airlines a shared, data-driven view of airspace so issues can be resolved before flights depart, operating across two tracks: SMART Schedules, which analyzes airline schedules, weather, airport capacity, and airspace conditions to identify conflicts months to days before departure, and SMART Trajectories, which supports day-of coordination between airlines and air traffic control from pre-departure onward.

Under the MOA, Surf Air Mobility will serve as a Participating Airspace User in the FAA's evaluation. The company said it will assign subject matter experts from network planning, flight performance engineering, dispatch, and flight operations to the FAA's SMART Innovation Lab, and will contribute operational data and feedback to help refine SMART's scheduling and trajectory models. Surf Air Mobility cited its experience operating Southern Airways and Mokulele Airlines under Part 135 scheduled airline rules, alongside the AI and data infrastructure it has built through SurfOS, as the two foundations for its participation.

This is an example of a regulator recruiting an operator's own scheduling and data systems into a national infrastructure evaluation rather than building the tooling internally, giving a smaller Part 135 carrier a technical seat at a process usually dominated by mainline airlines and avionics suppliers. It reflects how airspace modernization programs like SMART depend on real operational data — schedules, dispatch decisions, trajectory patterns — supplied voluntarily by participating airlines, which makes an operator's day-to-day Part 135 experience a bargaining asset in shaping how the tools eventually work.

Surf Air Mobility also frames the MOA as reinforcing its stated ambitions to position SurfOS as an operating system for the Part 135 and private aviation industry, to become a platform for advanced air mobility, and to be the first Part 135 operator to commercialize scheduled and on-demand electric passenger flights. Whether SMART participation translates into commercial traction for SurfOS beyond Surf Air's own airlines, and how the FAA weighs input from a Participating Airspace User of Surf Air's size against larger carriers in the Innovation Lab, are the points to watch as the evaluation proceeds.