The United Kingdom resumed flights to and from the United States on Saturday after the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted a rare nationwide ground stop.
Despite the restart, the UK Civil Aviation Authority cautioned that travellers should expect further disruptions as airlines work to rebook stranded passengers and normalise schedules.
Several UK-to-US services faced delays and cancellations on Saturday morning, with British Airways noting that getting all flights underway would take time. Regulators emphasised that lifting the restriction does not equate to an immediate return to standard operations, as knock-on delays will persist while carriers clear the substantial backlog.
The FAA had earlier halted all departing flights across the US, citing “extraordinary circumstances” caused by communications failures at regional air traffic control centres. The outage reportedly impacted a critical telecommunications network managed by L3Harris Technologies that handles pilot-controller radio frequencies.
According to reports, the shutdown triggered over 10,000 delays and roughly 4,000 cancellations, affecting schedules for more than 1.5 million travellers across major hubs.
