Over 1.5 million passengers were due to fly during the disruption.
Dubai: The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted a nationwide ground stop on Friday evening, allowing flights to resume after a telecommunications failure brought departures across the country to a halt for more than four hours. The disruption triggered widespread travel chaos, with thousands of passengers facing cancellations, delays and lengthy waits at airports.
The FAA removed the restrictions at 8.15pm Eastern Time (1.15am GMT on Saturday), after suspending departures at 3.54pm over concerns about communication systems used by air traffic controllers. Aircraft already in the air were allowed to land, while some international flights received permission to depart before the nationwide restrictions were lifted.
The disruption affected one of the world’s busiest aviation networks. According to aviation data firm Cirium, around 11,000 flights carrying more than 1.5 million passengers were scheduled to depart from US airports after 4pm on Friday.
Although departures were cleared to resume, officials cautioned that airlines would need time to reposition aircraft and crews and work through the backlog of delayed passengers.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed ageing air traffic control technology and routers overwhelmed by data for the failure. Speaking at a White House news conference, he acknowledged that the FAA, rather than commercial airlines, was responsible for the disruption and called on Congress to provide additional funding to modernise the country’s aviation infrastructure.
Duffy warned that similar disruptions could occur without significant investment in the system. He expressed confidence that normal operations would be restored before the Thanksgiving holiday travel rush, while acknowledging that clearing the backlog and accommodating affected passengers would take time.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said investigators had found no evidence that the outage was caused by a cyberattack or another deliberate threat.
However, he added that the investigation was ongoing and officials had not definitively ruled out every possible cause.
Airlines also warned that the disruption could extend into Saturday. JetBlue cancelled its remaining Friday evening flights, with the exception of Europe-bound services departing from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Boston. The airline also cautioned that further cancellations could follow the next day.
The nationwide ground stop was the first suspension of US flight departures since January 2023, when a technical failure in a key FAA computer system disrupted air travel across the country. The last nationwide grounding before that took place in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
