The United States has reopened its airspace following a nationwide ground stop caused by a communications failure at air traffic control centres, which disrupted thousands of flights and left tens of thousands of passengers stranded at airports across the country.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted the restriction on Friday, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announcing that US airspace reopened at 8:15 p.m. Eastern Time (0115 GMT on Saturday).
However, Duffy warned that flight operations would resume gradually as airlines worked to restore their schedules following the disruption.
“It’s going to be slow,” he told reporters at the White House.
According to flight-tracking platform FlightRadar24, more than 6,600 flights were cancelled and 8,600 delayed, while another 1,500 flights had already been cancelled for Sunday.
Aviation analysts warned that the four-hour nationwide grounding could continue to affect airline operations for several days.
Duffy disclosed that tens of thousands of passengers were stranded at airports nationwide as a result of the disruption.
He also confirmed that he and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had met with President Donald Trump at the Oval Office to discuss the incident.
Explaining the cause of the disruption, Duffy said the problem began at 3:36 p.m. when air traffic control centres experienced instability in their radar and communications systems.
According to him, switches and routers became overloaded with data, resulting in inconsistencies in information transmitted through the network and prompting authorities to shut down the affected system.
“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,” he explained.
Despite the widespread disruption, Duffy maintained that air traffic controllers never completely lost radar or communications capabilities and were able to land thousands of aircraft safely.
He said the immediate technical problem had been resolved and that flying was safe, although he stressed the need for a comprehensive upgrade of the country’s ageing air traffic control infrastructure.
The Transportation Secretary blamed inadequate congressional funding for delays in modernising the system and called for $50 billion to overhaul the infrastructure.
Earlier on Friday, before the disruption occurred, the White House and the Department of Transportation had urged Congress to approve $30.1 billion for upgrades to 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.”
Meanwhile, Mullin said there was no evidence so far that the incident resulted from a cyberattack or a rogue artificial intelligence system, although investigators had not ruled out either possibility.
“It appears this was mechanically driven, however, we’re still looking,” he stated.
He added that the National Security Agency was working with the Department of Homeland Security on the investigation.
Two airline officials said the disruption appeared to have affected a telecommunications network operated by L3Harris Technologies, which handles critical radio frequencies used by air traffic controllers to communicate with pilots.
The company had yet to respond to a request for comment.
Despite the lifting of the nationwide ground stop, passengers continued to experience cancellations, delays and uncertainty at airports across the United States.
From Boston to Seattle and New York to Los Angeles, travellers crowded departure halls and airline service desks as aircraft remained parked at airport gates.
Among those affected was 50-year-old Edward Kargbo, from West Chester, Pennsylvania, who was scheduled to travel on a 9 p.m. Ethiopian Airlines flight to Lomé, Togo.
Following the disruption, Kargbo said he would spend the night at the airport ahead of a rescheduled departure at 6 a.m. on Saturday.
“I have to squat the night here,” he said. “I’m stranded.”
Also affected was 47-year-old Louise Maher, whose British Airways flight from Newark to London was caught up in the disruption.
“I might cry at some point but not yet,” she said.
US airlines will not be required to compensate affected passengers because the disruption resulted from an FAA system failure rather than circumstances within the airlines’ control.
The incident marked only the second nationwide ground stop since the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The previous nationwide grounding occurred in January 2023, when the FAA suspended domestic departures for approximately 90 minutes following an outage involving its Notice to Air Missions system.
The latest disruption also affected airline stocks, with shares of American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines falling between one and two per cent in after-hours trading, while JetBlue Airways declined by approximately three per cent.
As airlines worked to recover from the disruption, American Airlines announced that it was prioritising flights to smaller cities outside its major hubs, as well as international destinations, to reposition aircraft and crews and accelerate the restoration of normal operations.
Although the FAA has lifted the ground stop and declared flying safe, airlines continue to face the challenge of restoring schedules, repositioning aircraft and crews, and clearing the backlog of passengers affected by the nationwide disruption.
Post Title: “It’s Going To Be Slow” — US Reopens Airspace After Nationwide Air Traffic Failure Cancels Over 6,600 Flights, Delays 8,600 By Naijaonpoint.