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FAA ground stop lifted but U.S. flight disruptions continue
CNBC • • business
Key Points:
- The FAA imposed the longest nationwide ground stop since 9/11 on Friday due to a communications equipment failure, causing over 9,000 U.S. flight cancellations and 7,000 delays, with disruptions continuing into Saturday.
- More than 3,000 flights were canceled and nearly 1,000 delayed on Saturday as airlines worked to reposition aircraft and crews ahead of the busy Thanksgiving travel period.
- The FAA attributed the outage to overloaded data routers providing inconsistent information, highlighting the need for Congress to fund upgrades to the aging U.S. air traffic control infrastructure.
- The disruption affected sports teams' travel plans, prompting the FAA to offer priority scheduling for college football charter flights and leading to some Southeastern Conference games being rescheduled.
- FAA officials confirmed the issue was not a cyberattack and emphasized thorough system testing before resuming flight operations to ensure safety and reliability.
