Airlines are scrambling to resume and reschedule flights after afour-hour, nationwide ground stop, but many travelers are still facing cancellations and delays on Nov. 14.
The travel woes began after the Federal Aviation Administration identified instability in radar and communications systems at traffic control centersat 3:36 p.m. ET, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. The agency soon issued a ground stop, which halted flights around the country, forced passengers to remain stranded or find alternate transportation and left airlines with thousands of disrupted flights to reschedule. The ground stop was lifted at 8:15 p.m., but officials and experts warned disruptions could last days.
More than 5,100 flights into or out of the United States
were delayed or canceled on Nov. 14, according to flight tracking website FlightAware, though it's not clear how many of those issues were the result of the ground stop. Major hubs including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Chicago O'Hare International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport were among the hardest hit.
Duffy said on Nov. 14 that "operations are slowly returning to normal," and federal officials are working closely with airlines to support the recovery process.
"You will continue to see some delays and cancellations as carriers reschedule flights and reposition aircraft/crews where they are needed most," Duffy said on social media, adding that the Department of Transportation will provide further updates at 10:30 a.m. ET.
Duffy previously said it will take “some time" to get flights back to capacity, but he did not specify how long. The ground stop comes just weeks before Thanksgiving, which typically prompts some of the busiest travel days of the year.
“I think we’re going to be back up and operational as we come into the heat of travel during Thanksgiving,” Duffy said earlier.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the aging FAA telecommunications system failed as newer technology was being patched in. Duffy asked Congress to approve $50 billion to upgrade the system, increasing an earlier request from President Donald Trump.
“What we have is an incredibly old air traffic control system,” Duffy said, adding that switches and routers got “overloaded” in the system’s analog technology. “They started to give us inconsistency in the data from those routers, and because of that we shut the system down.”
More than 3,500 airplanes were flying when the ground stop was issued. Still, Mullin told reporters outside the White House that Americans did not have to fear for their safety over the outage and there were no indications the issues were due to a "nefarious attack."
“All your loved ones are safe," he said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Thousands of flights canceled or delayed after FAA lifts ground stop
