US air travel disruptions to persist until late on Sunday: FAA head

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) head, Bryan Bedford, has stated that US air travel will likely not resume normal schedules until late on Sunday. The aviation system is recovering from a nationwide shutdown caused by maintenance issues that disrupted air traffic communications. As of 9:35 p.m. ET on Saturday, more than 6,400 US flights were canceled and over 8,000 delayed.

FlightAware reported that 875 flights scheduled for Sunday had already been canceled. The FAA imposed a nationwide ground stop on Friday, halting nearly all departing flights for nearly five hours, which was the longest such halt since the 9/11 attacks. The shutdown was traced back to L3Harris, a contractor, which installed a new router at a remote facility.

The union representing FAA safety employees, Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, confirmed that the issue was isolated to two routers updated on Friday. The FAA and L3Harris are investigating the root cause, whether it was user error or a faulty router. The Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, requested $50 billion in funding to upgrade air traffic control systems, up from his initial request of $30 billion.

Congress approved $12.5 billion last year. House Speaker Mike Johnson supports the additional funding request.