FAA ground stop leaves millions stranded at US airports

In an unprecedented move since the 9/11 attacks, the FAA issued a nationwide ground stop on all flights Friday night, lasting up to five hours and upending the travel plans of millions of flyers.

By 9:30 p.m. ET, the rare halt had caused more than 25,100 flight delays and over 6,600 cancellations, according to FlightAware.com.

An estimated 1.5 million travelers were left stranded, according to aviation firm Cirium. US airlines did not provide compensation since it was an FAA system failure.

The flight delays and cancellations also froze air cargo and parcel logistics while disrupting travel schedules for college football, NHL, NBA, and NFL teams.

What had happened?
Flight operations were halted due to a radar communication outage.

Hours after the ground stop was lifted, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told a White House press conference that the disruption appeared to have been triggered by new technology upgrades overwhelming the aging air traffic control communications infrastructure. He said there was no apparent evidence of a cyberattack or malicious activity. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, meanwhile, acknowledged that the possibility of an outage had not been anticipated.

Duffy also pointed to the shortage of several thousand controllers and aging infrastructure, and requested $50 billion from Congress to modernize the systems.

He added that while the airspace has reopened, operations will resume slowly. But he was optimistic the situation would return to normal before the Thanksgiving travel rush set to begin in two weeks.

Frequent FAA outages
The FAA has experienced repeated communication outages this year. In September, a communications circuit failure at a Philadelphia-area air traffic control center delayed and canceled over 500 flights.

Meanwhile, airline shares dipped between 1% and 2% for American, United, and Delta, and about 3% for JetBlue in after-hours trading.