{"id":4456,"date":"2026-11-15T09:03:45","date_gmt":"2026-11-15T04:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=4456"},"modified":"2026-11-15T09:03:45","modified_gmt":"2026-11-15T04:03:45","slug":"us-air-travel-struggles-to-return-to-normal-after-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=4456","title":{"rendered":"US air travel struggles to return to normal after shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

US air travel is not expected to return to normal \u200bschedules until late on Sunday, the head of the FAA said, as the aviation system gradually recovers from a nationwide flight shutdown that officials blamed on routine maintenance \u200cgone awry.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As of 9:35 pm ET, airlines on Saturday had cancelled more than 6,400 US flights and delayed more than 8,000, according to FlightAware, an aviation website.<\/p>\n

That followed about 9,200 flights cancelled and 7,500 delayed on Friday after the FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop because of disruptions to air traffic communications.<\/p>\n

FlightAware said 875 flights scheduled for Sunday were already cancelled.<\/p>\n

Federal Aviation Administration head Bryan Bedford said on Saturday that he expected airline operations to largely \u200breturn to normal by late Sunday.<\/p>\n

He also apologised for the disruption, adding that the system remains stable.<\/p>\n

The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop<\/u><\/a> on Friday that halted nearly all departing \u200bflights for almost five hours.<\/p>\n

It was the longest nationwide halt to air travel since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and one of the \u2060single worst US travel days ever.<\/p>\n

The issue prompted the White House to convene an emergency meeting in the Situation Room on Friday and federal agencies to scramble to determine if it was a \u200bcyberattack.<\/p>\n

But the problem was traced to FAA contractor L3Harris\u2019 installation of at least one new router at a remote facility, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working to determine whether we had incompetence, \u200bmeaning, was it user error or installer error from L3Harris<\/u><\/a>, or did they install a faulty router? We haven\u2019t determined what the fault was,\u201d Duffy said at a press conference.<\/p>\n

The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, a union representing FAA safety employees, said the issue was isolated to two routers that were updated Friday.<\/p>\n

An official told Reuters it was believed the routers were in Arkansas and Texas.<\/p>\n

An FAA official said the agency conducted a safety assessment before the work.<\/p>\n

\u200bThe union said PASS-represented technicians were not involved in the upgrades that led to the ground stop.<\/p>\n

L3Harris said it took the issue seriously and is supporting the FAA in its investigation. Its shares last \u200btraded down about 4% after hours on Friday.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Overloaded communications centres<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Duffy said the trouble began on Friday afternoon, when air traffic control centres experienced instability in radar and communications systems.<\/p>\n

The router issue led to data overloading other \u200ccommunications centers, \u2060officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had over 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds, and what that did was (it) gave us issues with our communication with aeroplanes, and it also caused some disruption with our radar,\u201d Duffy added.<\/p>\n

The issue affected communications at 17 of the FAA\u2019s 22 en route centres, which control aircraft during the cruise portion of a flight.<\/p>\n

Bedford said the FAA ordered the ground stop in case a centre lost all communications.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo facilities went dark. Nothing was fully lost,\u201d Bedford added.<\/p>\n

The FAA said it was doing additional testing with L3Harris to see if there are any additional risks.<\/p>\n

Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and \u200bAmerican Airlines all cancelled about 25% of their \u200bflights on Saturday, while JetBlue cancelled nearly 45%. \u2060<\/p>\n

Airlines have issued travel waivers allowing passengers to rebook flights for later dates without cost.<\/p>\n

Though the FAA lifted the ground stop on Friday evening, the disruption for passengers<\/u><\/a> was far from over, with tens of thousands of people stranded in airports.<\/p>\n

Airlines were trying to get flight crews and other personnel in \u200bposition to resume flights.<\/p>\n

The disruption stranded some college football teams on Friday before games scheduled for Saturday.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US air travel is not expected to return to normal \u200bschedules until late on Sunday, the head of the FAA said, as the aviation system gradually recovers from a nationwide flight shutdown that officials blamed on routine maintenance \u200cgone awry. As of 9:35 pm ET, airlines on Saturday had cancelled more than 6,400 US flights and delayed more than 8,000, according to FlightAware, an aviation website. That followed about 9,200 flights cancelled and 7,500 delayed on Friday after the FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop because of disruptions to air…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}