U.S. flight disruptions enter third day, FAA eyes Monday return to normal

U.S. air travel disruptions continued into a third day on Sunday, with over 5,200 flights impacted, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. The Transportation Secretary stated that operations should return to normal by Monday as airlines recover from the systemwide ground stop. Over 1,600 flights were cancelled and nearly 3,600 delayed on Sunday, with airlines cancelling more than 6,400 US flights and delaying more than 8,000 on Saturday.

Transportation Secretary Duffy assured that there was no evidence of malicious intent, but the cause of the disruption remained unclear. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had issued a nationwide ground stop on Friday, halting nearly all departing flights for nearly five hours, which was the longest halt since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The installation of a new router by an FAA contractor at a remote facility led to other air traffic control centers being overwhelmed with data, causing communication issues. The FAA has since disabled the functionality of the problematic routers and taken similar actions for about 60 similar routers in the air traffic control system.

The worker who installed the router was a veteran, and officials did not believe anyone had tried to sabotage the network during the installation. Despite the ongoing disruptions, the FAA's priority has been ensuring passengers' safety. President Donald Trump called for additional funding to upgrade the air traffic control systems, criticizing the current system's age and condition.