Thousands of US flights canceled, delayed as air travel system recovers from shutdown
XLY•US airlines canceled more than 4,000 flights and delayed 3,000 more on Saturday as they recovered from Friday’s nationwide ground stop, which led to nearly 10,000 cancellations and more than 7,000 delays. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the FAA’s immediate problem had been fixed and sought $50 billion to upgrade air traffic control systems.
1. Flight disruptions continue
Major airlines canceled more than 4,000 US flights and delayed 3,000 more on Saturday, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded as airlines worked to reposition aircraft and crews. Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines each canceled about 20% of their flights, while JetBlue canceled 40%.
2. Network failure investigated
The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop on Friday that halted nearly all departing flights for almost five hours after a communications failure. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a contractor was working to convert a location from copper to fiber, and investigators had not determined whether the fault involved user or installer error or a faulty router. Duffy said the resulting data overload disrupted communications with aircraft and caused some radar disruption; he said an AI scheduling tool or cyberattacks were not to blame.
3. Funding sought for upgrades
Duffy called for $50 billion to upgrade air traffic control systems, describing the situation as an emergency. He said the immediate problem had been fixed and flying was safe, but warned that a broader overhaul was needed to prevent similar failures. The outage also renewed attention to aging technology and equipment and a shortage of several thousand air traffic controllers.
