Thousands of passengers faced crowded terminals and lengthy waits across the United States on Friday after a communications failure forced the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to issue a rare nationwide ground stop.
Although the FAA later lifted the restriction, the shutdown triggered more than 11,000 flight delays and cancellations, according to the Associated Press.
Ordered at 3:54 p.m. Eastern Time, the ground stop barred all departing aircraft while allowing over 4,000 airborne flights to land safely. FlightAware reported over 1,000 cancellations and nearly 10,000 delays, with disruptions rippling into Canada and Europe and leaving arriving planes stranded on crowded taxiways.
US President Donald Trump told Fox News the disruption did not appear linked to a cyberattack or artificial intelligence. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin echoed that assessment outside the White House, calling it a telecommunications outage with no signs of malicious activity, though officials are investigating all potential causes, including a new AI-powered air traffic control system. Microsoft also confirmed no link to its services.
Marking only the second nationwide ground stop since September 11, 2001—following a brief 2023 outage—the incident has renewed intense scrutiny over ageing US aviation infrastructure, which still relies on decades-old technology like floppy disks at hundreds of facilities.
In response, the White House and Transportation Department urged Congress to approve $30.1 billion to modernise airports and air traffic control systems.
