US airlines cancel more than 2,500 flights after nationwide air traffic outage
Airlines faced widespread disruption Saturday after a communications and radar failure halted departures nationwide for more than four hours on Friday.
By Amit Ricci ·
More than 2,500 flights across the United States were canceled Saturday as airlines struggled to recover from the country’s longest nationwide ground stop in 25 years. Hundreds more flights were delayed, according to tracking website FlightAware. The disruption left travelers stranded and forced professional and college sports teams to rearrange transportation and game schedules.
Trump administration officials said the introduction of new technology had overwhelmed aging air traffic control equipment, causing intermittent failures in communications and radar coverage. Friday’s shutdown lasted more than four hours before restrictions were lifted around 8:15 p.m. Eastern time. A limited number of domestic flights subsequently departed, but officials warned that disruption could continue for days. They expected normal operations to resume in time for the Thanksgiving travel rush.
The shutdown was the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023, when a Federal Aviation Administration computer system used to deliver notices to pilots malfunctioned. It was only the second since the September 11, 2001, attacks. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said more than 3,000 flights landed safely Friday and told reporters at the White House that no one had been in danger.
For passengers, the outage brought hours of uncertainty. Emily Brown and her 14-year-old daughter abandoned their Friday trip from Dallas to Columbus, Ohio, after waiting more than four hours. Her daughter had saved money for her ticket to surprise her best friend, but instead called the friend in tears from the airport. At Los Angeles International Airport, Ruth Coles said she remained aboard her flight from Newark for more than five hours after landing while passengers waited for an available gate.
College football programs were among those changing plans. Auburn’s team arranged bus transportation to Mississippi State, and Saturday’s kickoff moved from noon Eastern time to 4:15 p.m. Baylor, Washington, Kansas State, Minnesota and Ole Miss were also affected. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy urged NCAA football teams to contact the FAA so flights for Saturday games could receive priority.
Duffy blamed Congress for insufficient funding to replace older technology and warned that further outages were possible. He said officials reviewed the failure and restarted the system. He also said the incident did not involve the FAA’s new artificial intelligence system for predicting problems in the sky, adding that newly deployed equipment had remained operational.
The FAA’s modernization effort began last year after Congress approved $12.5 billion. The agency has replaced thousands of copper wires with fiber optic lines and upgraded hundreds of radio systems. Duffy and the White House are seeking another $30 billion to finish the overhaul.
Aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo, a former United Airlines pilot, said the nationwide loss of reliable communication between controllers and pilots distinguished this outage from earlier disruptions. Keeping aircraft on the ground was necessary when communication could not be assured, he said. Arroyo also noted that, unlike after the September 11 attacks, aircraft were not ordered to land immediately, and pilots likely retained contact with controllers at airports.
