US travellers face more flight disruptions ahead of holiday period
Airlines are struggling to clear a backlog of delayed and cancelled flights after a major communications failure grounded departures across the US, less than a week before nearly 29 million passengers begin travel for Thanksgiving.
A nationwide grounding of US flights caused by a communications failure disrupted travel this past Friday, leaving nearly 29 million passengers expected to fly during the Thanksgiving holiday period from November 20 to 30. The grounding, which lasted around five hours, began when aging routers overloaded with data caused inconsistencies in the air traffic control system.
Nearly 10,000 flights were cancelled or delayed, with major airlines such as Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, and United Airlines among the hardest hit. Some aircraft at major airports waited over five hours for a gate. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy acknowledged the issue was due to old hardware and stated that it would take time to restore normal operations.
Although the grounding was not the result of a cyber-attack, US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin assured passengers that air travel remained safe. The disruption extended beyond the US, with European authorities asked to suspend US-bound departures during the emergency. The grounding marked the longest nationwide shutdown of US flight departures since the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, and the second such groundstop in nearly a decade.
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