Flights Delayed in the US After FAA System Outage
Flights have resumed after the Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A.) ordered all airlines to pause all domestic departures “to allow the agency to validate the integrity of flight and safety information.” The ground stop came after an outage to the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, which provides important flight and safety information to pilots.
The F.A.A. lifted the ground stop and issued a statement via Twitter: “Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews.”
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg also tweeted that the NOTAM system was up and running again: “FAA has determined that the safety system affected by the overnight outage is fully restored, and the nationwide ground stop will be lifted effective immediately. I have directed an after-action process to determine root causes and recommend next steps.”
When the outage first happened earlier this morning, President Biden told reporters that he had just spoken to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg about the F.A.A. outage. “Aircraft can still land safely, just not take off right now. They don’t know what the cause of it is, they expect in a couple of hours they’ll have a good sense of what caused it and will respond at that time,” Biden said. The White House initially said there was no immediate evidence that this was a cyberattack.
Flight tracking service (also a travel app), FlightAware said more than 2,500 flights within, into, and out of the United States had been delayed today creating issues for major U.S. air carriers like United Airlines which has agreed to issue passengers travel vouchers for flights that are delayed or canceled due to the outage.
Airports urge travelers to check with carriers about flight delays and cancellations due to the outage.
