FAA lifts ground stop after hours-long delays snag travelers

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) enacted a nationwide ground stop, halting flights in US airspace for approximately five hours on Friday, causing considerable disruption for travelers and airports. This directive was issued following a communication issue that affected all Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCCs), according to US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.

The ground stop was finally lifted around 8:30 PM Eastern Time, but thousands of flights had been canceled or delayed, leaving many passengers stranded.

The FAA has not officially identified the cause of the communication issue, which prompted the ground stop. The FAA ATCSCC advisory halted departing flights and stated that international flights would be handled individually. Doug Yakel, the public information officer for San Francisco International Airport, confirmed the nationwide ground stop and noted that while inbound international flights were being managed on a case-by-case basis, departing aircraft were not permitted to take off.

The grounding follows a major Microsoft outage that has impacted several Microsoft-hosted services, including email, for over 24 hours. However, there is no indication that these two incidents are connected. CBS News reported on Saturday that the issue stemmed from the private communications network that connects America’s air traffic control system.

The FAA’s telecommunication infrastructure, managed by L3Harris, rebooted and crashed, leading to the communications outage. L3Harris, the company responsible for the network, has not provided a comment on the matter. The company had recently secured an $875 million, 12-year contract from the FAA for its Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories (SMART) system, which Air Space Intelligence (ASI) maintains is unrelated to the flight suspension.