FAA lifts nationwide ground stop on flights
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The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday night that airplane departures could resume after the agency lifted a nationwide ground stop caused by communications problems.
The FAA had grounded all flights nationwide Friday afternoon, causing hundreds of flights to be diverted. Officials cited “extraordinary circumstances” caused by communications problems at regional air traffic control centers.
Certain U.S. flights had already been cleared for departure, including flights within Alaska and Hawaii, as had some international flights departing US airspace.
This was the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023 when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned. Before that the last time had been after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication yet that “this was a nefarious attack against us. It’s just a telecommunications outage.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a communications issue affected the regional air traffic control centers that direct planes between airports nationwide.
Multiple NBA, NHL and college teams were left stranded following the groundings, throwing a busy sports weekend into chaos.
“I would encourage those football teams to reach out to the FAA, to schedule their flight times and make sure they can move” to make their kickoff, Duffy said.
Duffy said the outage is part of an ongoing problem with outdated technology that air traffic controllers rely on across the country.
“Many of our towers are almost 100 years old,” Duffy said. “Our air traffic controllers have leaky roofs. Air conditioning doesn’t work ... their elevators don’t work.”
He said the network relied on “old switches, old routers” and “1980s little copper lines” that were overloaded.
Since Congress approved $12.5 billion for the project last year, miles of old copper wires have been replaced with fiber optic lines and old radio systems are gradually being replaced at airports across the country. The White House is lobbying Congress to approve another $30 billion needed to complete the work.
Mullin said the introduction of some new technology into an old air traffic control system overwhelmed it. The system needs funding for a complete overhaul, he said, estimating a $50 billion price tag. ___
FedEx, the world’s largest cargo airline, was among the parcel delivery services monitoring the ground stop, saying customers can track the status of their shipments through the company’s website.
“We are prepared to activate contingency plans to minimize service disruptions and will resume normal flight operations as soon as the FAA permits,” said Shannon Davis, a spokesperson for FedEx.
The FAA’s ground stop applied to all departing flights at U.S. airports and therefore affected cargo and package shipping operations that rely on air transport.
U.S. airlines move about 61,000 tons of goods -- from letters to packages -- to and from more than 220 countries daily, according to the industry trade group Airlines for America.
FedEx has nearly 700 aircraft that operate around the globe, shipping an average of 17 million packages and 20 million pounds of freight daily, according to the company’s website. Most of those shipments are made in the U.S.
NBA, NHL and college teams were left stranded as they tried to reach their destinations, and NFL teams were left to wonder whether the issue would be resolved in time for them to travel to their games this weekend.
Most college football teams playing Saturday travel the day before their game, and the stoppage left many schools -- including No. 2 Utah, eighth-ranked Texas and No. 9 Tennessee -- at a standstill as they departed for road games.
Meanwhile, the Nets were among five NBA teams scheduled to fly Friday for games on Saturday. They had just boarded the team plane in New Orleans after playing the Pelicans earlier this week when their flight to Memphis was halted in place.