The Federal Aviation Administration has lifted a nationwide ground stop, allowing flights to resume after a disruption that lasted about five hours, the agency said.
The FAA said a communications issue affected multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers on 13 November, triggering the halt. The agency confirmed operations restarted in the evening once systems stabilised.
What caused the outage
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said new technology installations overloaded outdated systems, which led to intermittent communications and radar gaps. He urged Congress to fund modernisation of the air traffic control network to prevent similar incidents. These details were reported by the Associated Press.
The Associated Press reported the stoppage was the longest nationwide halt in 25 years. More than 3,000 flights were landed safely during the disruption, the AP said. The AP also reported that thousands of flights and potentially more than 1.5 million travellers were affected.
The FAA has confirmed the timing of the ground stop and that flights resumed after the issue eased. The agency has not released a full technical breakdown of the failure. Secretary Duffy’s explanation, as reported by the AP, points to system overload from new technology interacting with legacy infrastructure.
It is not yet known how long recovery to normal schedules will take across all airlines and airports. The FAA has not provided a final count of delays and cancellations.
Next steps
The FAA said it is continuing to monitor the system as flights return to service. Secretary Duffy has called for funding to speed upgrades of the national air traffic system, according to the AP.
Sources: Federal Aviation Administration statements; Associated Press reporting.
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