By KIMBERLEE KRUESI
Associated Press
Airlines canceled thousands of flights across the U.S. on Saturday as they worked to recover from a nationwide ground stop a day earlier that left passengers scrambling for seats and disrupted travel around the world.
The U.S. air travel schedule should be back to normal by the end of Sunday, two days after what was the nation's longest ground stop in 25 years, Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bryan Bedford told reporters in Washington on Saturday. He said airlines “will still have delays and cancellations” Saturday but promised that the “worst is behind us.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the problem began when contractor L3Harris Technologies Inc. was replacing a section of the air traffic control system’s old copper wire with new fiber wire, somehow causing the system to overload. The work led to “intermittent” communications and radar gaps, prompting the government to shut down air traffic for more than four hours.
Duffy said officials were investigating whether contractor “incompetence” or a faulty router was the cause. “Our contractor didn't meet the moment or the equipment didn’t meet the moment,” he added.
L3Harris said it was supporting the FAA in its investigation to “understand the conditions” that led to the ground stop.
“L3Harris takes the nationwide ground stop and its impact on travelers, airlines and air traffic operations seriously,” it said in a statement.
The nationwide stop was the first since January 2023, when a key FAA computer system that sends notices to pilots malfunctioned, and the second since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Andrew Charlton, an aviation consultant, said Friday's stoppage affected about a quarter of the 45,000 flights in the U.S. each day.
“The knock-on effect of that is incredible,” said Charlton, managing director of Aviation Advocacy. “The aircraft doesn’t just fly from A to B and back … and then stop. It then moves onto C and then over to E and around and around and around. It is, of course, exacerbated if you’re talking about long-haul flights, international flights over the Atlantic or over the Pacific.”
Thousands of flights delayed and canceled
At airports across the U.S. on Saturday, passengers were still scrambling to figure out how to get to their destinations. Some waited out the chaos in hotels, others sprinted to snag rental cars and bus or train tickets. Many were forced to camp out in airports.
Others got creative. Video in Seattle's airport showed a passenger serenading stressed out travelers with classical music. Stranded strangers participated in a cornhole tournament at the Lexington, Kentucky, airport. The singer T-Pain and the band Hoobastank were captured on video singing to passengers as they waited on commercial airplanes.
Dan Russell, 66, learned his connecting flight from Kona, Hawaii, to Fresno, California, was canceled a half-hour before boarding was scheduled in San Diego on Friday night. Hotels were full, so he and his wife waited at the airport for a rebooked flight.
“There’s nothing you can do,” Russell said, as his wife, Mary, tried to nap on his shoulder.
A cheerful Southwest Airlines gate agent at Dallas Love Field greeted passengers at dawn with, “Good morning, good morning,” then repeatedly said all flights were full and asked passengers to have boarding passes ready to help keep flights moving.
In Las Vegas, Korean Mexican influencer Sujin Kim, known online as Chingu Amiga, said her flight to Mexico was rescheduled for Saturday morning. “Many people ended up sleeping at the airport, too, but thank God we managed to find a room,” she said.
At the Newark, N.J., airport, Umi Egchi was trying to figure out when his flights would line up so he could return home to Japan.
“I’m not sure exactly what happened. I just want to go home,” said Egchi, who had a sleep mask on top of his head.
Sports teams that traveled for games this weekend adjusted game start times, and No. 19 Mississippi’s game at Oklahoma was delayed a full day to Sunday.
FlightAware, a website that tracks flights, said more than 5,100 flights within, into or out of the U.S. had been canceled Saturday.
Officials say no one was in danger during ground stop
Duffy reiterated Saturday that no one was in danger as more than 3,000 flights in the air at the time of the grounding order landed safely.
Trump administration officials also blamed Congress for failing to approve more funding to replace the decades-old technology that helps manage the U.S. air traffic. Duffy said that 70% of the system had been replaced with fiber optic wire but that his agency also needs new air traffic control towers and runways.
The FAA has replaced thousands of old copper wires with fiber optic lines and upgraded hundreds of radio systems as part of an overhaul that began last year after Congress approved $12.5 billion in funding. Duffy and the White House are pushing for $30 billion more to complete the work.
“We have aging infrastructure throughout the airspace,” Duffy said, while stressing that flying remains safe. “You won’t get to your destination if we don’t think you can get there safely.”
In a moment that perhaps only further underscored the Transportation Department’s struggling systems, Duffy’s news conference Saturday morning began with audio troubles that forced last-minute microphone swaps.
Although Duffy said he had repeatedly spoken with President Donald Trump since the ground stop began, the president has largely been quiet on the topic. He has not spoken publicly on the matter, nor issued statements via social media, although he commented on other things. He spoke on the phone with a Fox News reporter, but that was not on camera.
Charlton, the aviation consultant, pointed to the difficulties of updating a system that can never shut down.
“What you’re watching here is trying to change the tires of your car when the car’s going at 80 miles an hour down the expressway, because nothing stops in aviation,” Charlton said.
Past problems have been linked to equipment failures
The problem appeared similar to a regional air traffic control communication outage in September that snarled hundreds of flights across the Northeast. That disruption was linked to a construction crew cutting a fiber optic line.
Aging equipment was also blamed for brief radar outages last year that disrupted Newark airport.
Aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo said the difference Friday was the nationwide scale of the disruption, which left controllers unable to reliably talk to pilots.
“If you don’t have that ability, whether it’s because the old wires that they have are just run down or for whatever reason, you’ve got to stop airplanes on the ground and not put them in the air, where you’re going to risk not being able to communicate with them,” said Arroyo, a former United Airlines pilot.
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This version has been updated to correct that Duffy said investigators were looking at whether a possible faulty router, not a faulty wire, might have been the cause.
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Kruesi reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Associated Press journalists Jill Colvin in New York, Seung Min Kim in Washington, Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Bernice Bautista in Las Vegas, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, also contributed.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 2,000 flights were canceled Saturday as airlines across the U.S. worked to dig out from the longest nationwide ground stop in 25 years, which stranded passengers and forced professional and college sports teams to scramble for alternate transportation.
Trump administration officials said new technology being added to the nation’s air traffic control system overloaded antiquated equipment and caused “intermittent” communications and radar gaps, leading to the flight shutdown of more than four hours.
A limited number of domestic flights departed after the stop was lifted around 8:15 p.m. ET. But the effects could be felt for days, with officials saying the system is likely to be operating normally in time to handle the Thanksgiving travel rush.
The nationwide stop was the first since January 2023, when another key FAA computer system that sends notices to pilots malfunctioned, and the second since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Emily Brown and her 14-year-old daughter waited more than four hours Friday at the Dallas airport for their flight to Columbus, Ohio, before giving up. They were traveling to surprise her daughter’s best friend. Instead, she had to settle for phoning the friend through tears in the airport, Brown said.
“She saved up her money to buy her own ticket, and she’s planned this whole weekend,” Brown said. “Now we’re not sure when we’re gonna be able to go.”
Ruth Coles was stuck on her plane for more than five hours after landing at Los Angeles International Airport from Newark, New Jersey. She said the passengers were told they were waiting for a gate to open.
“The pilot keeps saying they are telling him we are next in line,” Coles said.
Thousands of flights delayed and canceled
At airports across the U.S., passengers stared at screens showing delays or rushed to find buses or trains to their destinations. Some passed the time by breaking out in song.
Sports teams scheduled to play this weekend adjusted game start times, searched for hotel rooms, rescheduled flights and chartered buses.
Auburn University's football team opted to take a bus to Mississippi State and the Saturday start time was pushed from noon ET to 4:15 p.m. Other universities affected by the stoppage included Baylor, Washington, Kansas State, Minnesota and No. 19 Ole Miss, which did not plan to fly until Saturday morning for its game against Oklahoma.
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy encouraged NCAA football teams to reach out to the FAA so the agency can prioritize flights for Saturday games.
More than 2,500 flights were canceled in the U.S. Saturday and hundreds more were delayed, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks flight disruptions.
Corbyn Wascher's flight was on the tarmac at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport for four hours Friday on his way home to Moline, Illinois, from a conference in Miami. Everyone was cordial on the American Airlines plane as they talked and stretched their legs and the flight attendants handed out water, pretzels and biscotti snacks, he said.
“The stewardesses were amazing. You could tell that they were pretty stressed out,” said the 37-year-old high school teacher, who took a $100 uber to a hotel 25 minutes from the airport after he was unable to find new flights. He was scheduled for a Saturday afternoon flight to Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
Officials say no one was in danger during ground stop
Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin told reporters at the White House that no one was in any danger as more than 3,000 flights were safely landed Friday.
Duffy blamed Congress for failing to approve more funding for new technology, while downplaying the fact that trying to implement new fixes overtaxed the system. He suggested more disruptions might occur.
“We didn’t think we would have this kind of outage. We did,” he said. “We were able to review what went wrong, and then reboot the system and go. But, you will have more of these.”
Duffy said the problems were not linked to the FAA’s new AI-powered system the agency is rolling out to help predict problems in the sky because that isn’t connected to Friday's failure.
“This is all the old legacy equipment. All of the new equipment that’s been deployed did not go down,” Duffy said.
The FAA has already replaced thousands of old copper wires with fiber optic lines and upgraded hundreds of radio systems as part of the overhaul that began last year after Congress approved $12.5 billion of funding. Duffy and the White House are pushing for $30 billion more to complete the work.
Past problems have been linked to equipment failures
The problem appeared similar to a regional air traffic control communication outage in September that snarled hundreds of flights across the Northeast, although that disruption was linked to a construction crew cutting a fiber optic line. Aging equipment was also blamed for the brief radar outages last year that disrupted Newark airport.
Aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo said the difference this time is it happened on a nationwide scale that left controllers unable to reliably talk to pilots.
“If you don’t have that ability, whether it’s because the old wires that they have are just run down or for whatever reason, you’ve got to stop airplanes on the ground and not put them in the air, where you’re going to risk not being able to communicate with them,” said Arroyo, a former United Airlines pilot.
Friday’s ground stop also was different from the one after 9/11 because planes were not being told to land immediately and pilots likely were able to communicate with ground controllers at airports, Arroyo said.
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Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska, and Golden from Seattle. Associated Press journalists Mead Gruver in Fort Collins, Colorado; Jessica Hill in Las Vegas; Ali Swenson in Chicago; Alex Veiga and Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles; Seung Min Kim and Aamer Madhani in Washington; and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.