Flights halted at several major U.S. airports, including New York's JFK and LaGuardia
The U.S. Federal Aviation Authority issued ground stops at some of the busiest East Coast airports on Monday, including New York's JFK and LaGuardia, as the fallout from an air traffic control communications issue widened.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) halted flights at major East Coast airports in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston on Monday due to a fibre cable cut at a construction site in New Jersey. This incident, affecting 130 world leaders and numerous ministers arriving for the UN General Assembly, led to ground stops at John F. Kennedy Airport, LaGuardia Airport, and Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford stated that a backup fibre line had also been cut, which was expected to be resolved soon. Over 600 flights at Newark and Philadelphia, or more than 20 percent, were delayed, with Newark being a major United Airlines hub and Philadelphia an American Airlines hub. The disruption caused average delays of 112 minutes at Newark, and the issue has forced some flights to be diverted to other airports.
The FAA acknowledged that the problem has led to significant flight cuts and delayed ground stops at the New York-area airports. Last year, a telecommunications outage impacted communications and radar displays at Philadelphia TRACON, and in May 2025, the facility guiding air traffic in and out of Newark suffered multiple communications outages.
The recent IT issues have raised concerns about the resilience of the air traffic control system, with airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet expressing frustration over the repeated failures.
Written by urgent.news from South China Morning Post's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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