Thousands of US flights still cancelled or delayed two days after nationwide ground stop
Thousands of US flights were still cancelled or delayed on Sunday as air-traffic control recovered from Friday’s rare nationwide ground stop. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy told CBS that crews and aircraft are out of position and that normal operations may not return until Monday. More than 5,000 flights were delayed and 2,000 cancelled on Sunday. On Saturday, airlines cancelled more than 5,900 flights and delayed more than 7,000. After the stoppage itself, FlightAware recorded 8,500 delays and 8,000 cancellations.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced at 15:54 EST (20:54 GMT) on Friday that flights scheduled to depart the United States would be grounded until further notice. More than 3,500 aircraft were already airborne; some were diverted, others continued. The halt lasted about four and a half hours. Passengers were stuck on tarmacs or sleeping in terminals, and schedules in the UK and Europe were disrupted.
Investigators have not yet named a root cause or who is at fault. Duffy said the administration grounded flights after failures in a system used by controllers and pilots to communicate: a computer router installed in El Dorado, Arkansas, during an upgrade from copper wire to fibre began sending faulty signals and “flooded” the network. He told NBC’s Meet the Press that the network has been neglected for decades and needs a complete overhaul, warning that similar problems will recur until it is modernised. President Donald Trump, posting on Truth Social, urged Congress to fund the work in one go rather than “drips and drabs,” calling much of the current system 50 years old. Aviation analyst Miles O’Brien told the BBC the US system is “a house that’s about to be condemned” and worse than a fixer-upper — technology experts say the country still relies on antiquated flight-communications gear.
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