Administration system outage caused thousands of flight delays and cancellations across the United States - Pete Muntean and Gregory Wallace
The FAA briefly halted all domestic flight departures across the United States Wednesday morning, lifting the ground stop around 9 a.m. ET after it restored a system that provides pilots with pre-flight safety notices.
But airlines continued to delay or cancel flights because of ongoing congestion.
The Chicago Department of Aviation said ground stops at O'Hare and Midway had been lifted but "residual delays or cancellations" are likely.
Major US carriers including United Airlines, Delta and American Airlines all said they had grounded flights in response to the situation. United and Delta have issued travel waivers in response to the outage. American Airlines also said its customers could rebook their flights Wednesday and Thursday without additional fees.
FlightAware, which tracks delays and cancellations, showed more than 7,600 flights to, from and within the United States as being delayed as of 1:05 p.m. ET, and more than 1,100 flights canceled so far.
Southwest, which canceled thousands of flights after Christmas following a systemwide meltdown, was hit hard, with more than 375 canceled flights. About 9% of Southwest flights are canceled and 47% of flights are delayed.
The airline said mid-morning Wednesday that operations have resumed.
"As a result of the FAA's outage, we anticipate some schedule adjustments will be made throughout the day," Southwest said in a statement, encouraging travelers to check their flight status online or via the airline's app. Southwest has also issued a waiver allowing travelers to change their flights.
American Airlines was hit even harder by one measure: Including feeder airlines that use regional jets, American said it has canceled nearly 400 flights as of midday Wednesday.
Cause of outage still unclear
The affected system, Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM), sends alerts to pilots to let them know of conditions that could affect the safety of their flights. It is separate from the air traffic control system that keeps planes a safe distance from each other, but it's another critical tool for air safety.
There is no evidence yet that Wednesday's air travel technology meltdown resulted from a cyber attack, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said, but he also wouldn't rule it out.
"There's been no direct evidence or indication of that but we are also not going rule that out until we have a clear and better understanding of what's taken place," Buttigieg said in an interview with CNN's Kate Bolduan.
A 90-minute nationwide ground stop of flights across the United States Wednesday morning was implemented out of an "abundance of caution." Buttigieg said that there were "irregularities" overnight in the safety messages that were going out to pilots that reflected a larger issue.
Buttigieg, who has been hard on airlines over their staffing and technology issues in the last year, said the Transportation Department and Federal Aviation Administration would "own" responsibility for their failures.
"No, these kinds of disruptions should not happen and my primary interest now that we've gotten through the immediate disruptions of the morning is understanding exactly how this was possible and exactly what steps are needed to make sure it doesn't happen again," Buttigieg said.
US President Joe Biden said Wednesday morning there was no immediate information on what had caused the outage -- the second US aviation crisis in a matter of weeks.
There is "no evidence of foul play based on our discussions with DOT/FAA," a senior US official familiar with matter told CNN.
Buttigieg said via Twitter Wednesday morning that he had ordered an "after-action process to determine root causes and recommend next steps."
Calls came swiftly for aviation system upgrades.
"Today's FAA catastrophic system failure is a clear sign that America's transportation network desperately needs significant upgrades," said Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.
"Americans deserve an end-to-end travel experience that is seamless and secure. And our nation's economy depends on a best-in-class air travel system."
Source: CNN
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