Flight Disruptions in US Could Last for Days after FAA’s Outage Stopped Domestic Service for Hours

Chinedu Eze  with agency report

Several hours after domestic flights in the United States were yesterday grounded due to computer glitch, services picked up slowly in all parts of the country, as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) scrambled to fix the system.

Reuters reported that more than 7,300 flights were delayed and 1,100 cancelled, according to the FlightAware website in the first national grounding of flights in about two decades.

According to Reuters, the number was still rising and officials said the outage could cause delays through at least Thursday, if not longer, according to several airlines.

The cause of the problem with a pilot-alerting system was unclear, but US officials said they had so far found no evidence of a cyberattack.

US Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, told CNN that an issue with overnight, “irregularities” with safety messages sent to pilots prompted the outage.

He said the ground stop was the “right call” to make sure messages were moving correctly and there is no direct evidence of cyberattack.

The outage occurred at a typically slow time after the holiday travel season, but demand remained strong as travel continues to recover to near pre-pandemic levels.

The FAA said in a tweet that normal air traffic operations were resuming.

The outage could impact traffic through Friday, Vice President of the Allied Pilots Association, Captain Chris Torres said.

“This thing was lifted at 9 a.m. Eastern. That doesn’t mean the problem stops at 9 a.m. This is going to cause ripple effects,” said Torres, whose members fly for American Airlines.

The FAA had earlier ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures after its pilot alerting system crashed and the agency had to perform a hard reset around 2 a.m., officials said. Flights already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations.

CNN also reported that major US carriers including United Airlines, Delta and American Airlines all said they had grounded flights in response to the situation.

United and Delta have issued travel waivers in response to the outage. American Airlines also said its customers could rebook their flights Wednesday and Thursday without additional fees.

FlightAware, which tracks delays and cancellations, showed more than 7,600 flights to, from and within the United States as being delayed as of 1:05 p.m. ET, and more than 1,100 flights cancelled so far.