US air travel expected to recover by Sunday after nationwide shutdown sparks chaos

A nationwide FAA ground stop disrupted thousands of US flights after a communications failure. The record shutdown renewed scrutiny of ageing air traffic control infrastructure.Thousands of passengers were left stranded at airports across the US as widespread flight cancellations and delays disrupted travel following the nationwide shutdown. (Photo: Reuters)US air travel is expected to return largely to normal by the end of Sunday after a nationwide ground stop triggered the longest shutdown of flights in 25 years, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Bryan Bedford said on Saturday. However, airlines are still dealing with thousands of cancellations and delays as they work to restore normal operations.Bedford said the situation had stabilised and expressed confidence that the worst of the disruption was over, although he cautioned that travellers would continue to face delays and cancellations through Saturday."The system is stable, and I expect airline operations to largely return to normal by late Sunday," Bedford said, apologising for the disruption caused by the shutdown.The FAA had ordered a nationwide ground stop on Friday, halting almost all departing flights across the United States for nearly five hours after a major communications failure disrupted air traffic control operations. The shutdown triggered widespread cancellations and delays, leaving hundreds of thousands of travellers stranded and disrupting airline schedules across the country. According to flight-tracking data, airlines cancelled around 4,500 flights and delayed another 4,400 on Saturday as they struggled to recover from the disruption. The impact was compounded by difficulties in repositioning aircraft, flight crews and other personnel to resume scheduled services.ROUTER INSTALLATION TRIGGERED COMMUNICATIONS FAILURETransportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the disruption was triggered by the installation of at least one new router by FAA contractor L3Harris at a remote facility. The installation led to an overload of data at other communications centres, affecting the system used by air traffic controllers to communicate with aircraft. "We're working to determine whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error or installer error from L3Harris, or did they install a faulty router? We haven't determined what the fault was," Duffy said at a press conference on Saturday.He explained that the system experienced more than 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds, creating problems with communications between controllers and aircraft and causing some disruption to radar operations.The failure affected 17 of the FAA's 22 en route air traffic control centres across the country. These facilities are responsible for managing aircraft during the cruising portion of their journeys.Bedford said the agency ordered the nationwide ground stop as a precaution against the possibility of any centre losing communication completely. However, he clarified that no facility went offline and that no communication system was entirely lost.The FAA is conducting additional tests with L3Harris to establish the precise cause of the failure and determine whether any further risks remain.AIRLINES STRUGGLE TO RESTORE OPERATIONSAlthough the FAA lifted the ground stop on Friday evening, the disruption continued into Saturday as airlines attempted to clear the backlog of flights and get their operations back on schedule.Major carriers were among those reporting significant cancellations. Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines each cancelled around 20 per cent of their flights on Saturday, while JetBlue cancelled approximately 40 per cent of its scheduled services.Airlines also issued travel waivers allowing affected travellers to rebook flights for later dates without additional charges.The disruption extended beyond domestic routes, with several flights connecting the United States and London's Heathrow Airport also listed as delayed or cancelled on Saturday.The scale of the shutdown made it the longest nationwide interruption to US air travel in 25 years. It was the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023, when an FAA computer system responsible for sending safety notices to pilots malfunctioned, disrupting thousands of flights. It was also the second such nationwide shutdown since the September 11, 2001, attacks.The FAA said more than 3,000 aircraft that were already airborne when the grounding order was issued landed safely. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no danger to aircraft or those on board during the disruption.AGEING AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEM UNDER SCRUTINYThe latest failure has renewed concerns over the condition of the US air traffic control infrastructure, which has faced repeated communications and equipment problems, alongside a shortage of several thousand air traffic controllers.Duffy said the incident highlighted the urgent need to modernise the country's air traffic control system and blamed Congress for not providing sufficient funding for the upgrades."This is an emergency," he said on Friday, calling for $50 billion to overhaul the system, increasing his earlier request for $30 billion.The administration had previously secured $12.5 billion in funding for the modernisation programme, which began last year. As part of the effort, the FAA has replaced thousands of ageing copper wires with fibre-optic lines and upgraded hundreds of radio systems.Duffy also said the latest failure was not connected to the FAA's new artificial intelligence-powered system, which is being introduced to help predict potential problems in the skies.The incident follows several other disruptions linked to ageing equipment. In September, a communications outage at an air traffic control facility in the Northeast caused widespread flight delays after a construction crew accidentally cut a fibre-optic cable. Radar problems linked to ageing equipment also disrupted operations at Newark Airport last year.Officials are now working to ensure the system is stable ahead of the Thanksgiving travel period, one of the busiest times of the year for US airlines. Bedford expressed confidence that operations would recover by late Sunday, although the full impact of Friday's shutdown could continue to be felt as airlines work through the backlog.- EndsWith inputs from agencies