US air travel recovery to ‘take time’ after nationwide outage
• Officials blame an overload on decades-old air traffic control switches, 1980s copper lines
• Transport secretary renews plea to Congress for $30.1bn to modernise ageing systems
• Homeland Security rules out cyberattack, AI interference, any link to Microsoft outage
NEW YORK: Flights in the United States were resuming on Saturday after being grounded for several hours due to a major communications outage, though authorities said returning to normal operations would take time.
Friday’s nationwide ground stop sparked widespread chaos and left hundreds of thousands of passengers in limbo, with some pulled off planes moments before departure by airline staff who appeared in the dark about unfolding events.
It marked only the third nationwide ground stop in US history, and the second since the 9/11 attacks, in airspace that is among the busiest in the world.
Nearly 6,000 flights were cancelled on Friday, including international routes, according to FlightAware.
The knock-on effect remained severe on Saturday morning, with more than 3,500 US flights already cancelled and major hubs, including New York’s JFK Airport, showing dozens of delays and cancellations. US Federal Aviation Administration officials reopened the airspace at 8:15pm Eastern time “after restoring full functionality” at air traffic control facilities, according to Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy.
“It will take us time [to] resume normal operations,” Duffy said. “Our top priority is the safety of you and your family when you fly.”
Officials blamed the incident on telecommunications issues with decades-old equipment, adding there was no evidence of foul play.
“This is a legacy system problem,” Duffy said. “We have old, old switches, old routers. We use 1980s little copper lines. It’s an old system that went down, and went down everywhere. It got overloaded.”
As the ground stop was lifted, Duffy repeated his plea to Congress for $30.1 billion to modernise the air traffic control system.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin stressed there was no sign of hostile action Friday, telling reporters, “We’ve seen zero evidence that this was a cyberattack or [AI] attack.” He ruled out any link to this week’s Microsoft outage that knocked email systems offline for millions of users, public services and businesses worldwide.
A nationwide ground stop is highly unusual. One occurred in January 2023 when a pilot notification system failed, while the only other happened after the September 2001 attacks, when no commercial aircraft flew for days.
“While US flights have resumed, there may be some follow-on disruption as airlines work to rebook affected passengers and get all services back to normal,” said Tim Johnson, consumer director at the UK Civil Aviation Authority.
During the outage, airport footage showed full gates and planes waiting on taxiways as passengers thronged concourses for information. Airport boards showed departures leaving as normal, while mobile boarding passes held by grounded travellers indicated flights were underway, and some passengers were told wind caused the delays.
At New York’s LaGuardia Airport, Tiara Johnson said her flight to Orlando for a concert was repeatedly pushed back.
“They just keep delaying it. … So it started out at 7:55. Then it went to 8:30, 9:30. Now it’s at 10:30. So we don’t know when it’s gonna leave,” she said, adding she felt frustrated because “your whole plans have changed and you don’t know when you’re leaving. We’re kind of stuck.”
Elsewhere, stranded travellers scrambled for alternatives. At Washington’s Reagan National Airport, Colin Montgomery said he was prepared to drive after his flight was axed: “I got another flight that I booked for tomorrow for 6:30, just in case everything gets resolved overnight, but that seems unlikely.”
In Las Vegas, where long lines formed at rental car counters, Susan Sardina said, “We were already on our flight to leave and we were told to get off,” as she waited in a lengthy queue for a rental car.
Nearby, Joseph Anderson, 72, trying to fly to Oakland, California, weighed driving instead: “We’re trying to debate whether or not we need to reschedule or drive or what, but if the whole country is stopped, that means the highways are going to be jammed too.”
Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2026
