US lifts nationwide ground stop, allowing flights to resume after hours of travel chaos
The rare nationwide ground stop order, issued due to a communications problem affecting US air traffic control towers, caused chaos at airports and triggered the longest shutdown since the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
· CNA · JoinRead a summary of this article on FAST.
Get bite-sized news via a new
cards interface. Give it a try.
Click here to return to FAST Tap here to return to FAST
FAST
WASHINGTON: The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted a nationwide ground stop on Friday (Nov 13) after a communications failure at air traffic control centres caused chaos at airports and triggered the longest nationwide shutdown since the Sep 11, 2001, attacks.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said US airspace reopened at 8.15pm Eastern Time (0115 GMT), but warned that departures would resume gradually and it would take time for airlines to restore normal operations.
"It's going to be slow," Duffy told reporters at the White House.
More than 6,600 flights were cancelled and 8,600 delayed, with another 1,500 already cancelled for Sunday, according to FlightRadar24. Aviation analysts said the four-hour nationwide grounding could disrupt airline schedules for days.
CNA Games
Guess Word
Crack the word, one row at a time
Buzzword
Create words using the given letters
Mini Sudoku
Tiny puzzle, mighty brain teaser
Mini Crossword
Small grid, big challenge
Word Search
Spot as many words as you can
Show More
Show Less
Duffy said tens of thousands of passengers were stranded at airports around the country.
Three Singapore Airlines (SIA) flights departing the US on Friday were also delayed due to operational issues affecting US airports, the airline said in response to CNA queries.
SQ11, operating from Los Angeles to Tokyo-Narita, was delayed for two hours and 30 minutes while SQ25, operating from New York to Frankfurt, was delayed for one hour and 10 minutes.
SQ33, operating from San Francisco to Singapore, was also delayed for 43 minutes.
The operational issues affecting US airports have been resolved, and there is no impact on other SIA flights, the airline said.
The failure is the latest and most dramatic sign of strain on a US air traffic control system beset by ageing technology, equipment and communications problems and a shortage of several thousand controllers.
Duffy said the trouble began at 3.36 pm when air traffic control centres experienced instability in radar and communications systems. Switches and routers carrying critical data became overloaded, producing inconsistent information and prompting the FAA to halt departures nationwide, he said.
"Our switches, our routers actually got overloaded with data and they started to give us inconsistencies in the data from those routers and because of that we shut the system down," Duffy said, adding at no stage did they completely lose radar or communications and were able to safely land thousands of planes.
Duffy said the immediate problem had been fixed and that flying was safe, but warned that a broader overhaul of the ageing air traffic control system was needed to prevent similar failures.
US$50 BILLION AVIATION OVERHAUL
Duffy blamed Congress for failing to fund a new system that he said could prevent such outages, and called for US$50 billion to modernise it.
Earlier on Friday, before the outage, the White House and Department of Transportation had urged Congress to approve US$30.1 billion to upgrade the nation's ageing airports and air traffic control infrastructure.
"What we have is an incredibly old air traffic control system," Duffy said.
"Give us the money to fix it."
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was "zero evidence" so far that the outage resulted from a cyberattack or a rogue AI system, although investigators had not ruled out either possibility.
"It appears this was mechanically driven, however, we're still looking," Mullin said.
The National Security Agency was working with the Department of Homeland Security on the investigation, he added.
The outage appeared to be affecting a telecommunications network overseen by L3Harris Technologies, according to two airline officials. The network handles critical radio frequencies used by air traffic controllers to communicate with pilots. L3Harris did not respond to a request for comment.
PAIN NOT OVER FOR PASSENGERS
Though the ground stop was lifted, the disruption for passengers was far from over. From Boston to Seattle and New York to Los Angeles, passengers crowded departure halls and airline desks as delays and cancellations mounted and aircraft remained parked at gates.
Thousands of passengers faced being stranded overnight. Edward Kargbo, 50, from West Chester, Pennsylvania, had been scheduled to take a 9pm Ethiopian Airlines flight to Lome, Togo.
Instead, he planned to spend the night at the airport before a rescheduled flight at 6am on Saturday.
“I have to squat the night here,” he said. “I’m stranded.”
Louise Maher, 47, was also caught up in the disruption at Newark after her British Airways flight to London was caught up in the aviation meltdown.
“I might cry at some point but not yet,” she said.
US airlines will not be required to provide compensation to stranded passengers because the carriers were not responsible for the FAA system failures.
The only other nationwide ground stop since the Sep 11 attacks came in January 2023, when the FAA halted domestic departures for about 90 minutes.
Investors were already pricing in a financial hit to airlines. Shares of American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines fell between 1 per cent and 2 per cent in after-hours trading, while JetBlue Airways dropped about 3 per cent.
American Airlines said it was prioritising flights to smaller cities outside its major hubs and international destinations to position aircraft and crews for a faster recovery.
Sign up for our newsletters
Get our pick of top stories and thought-provoking articles in your inbox
Get the CNA app
Stay updated with notifications for breaking news and our best stories
Get WhatsApp alerts
Join our channel for the top reads for the day on your preferred chat app