Travelers across the United States and international hubs face persistent flight cancellations and delays as the aviation system slowly recovers from a historic nationwide ground stop.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued the rare nationwide ground stop after an air traffic control telecommunications failure disrupted centers across the country. The directive halted all departing domestic flights and suspended incoming flights from destinations such as Europe, marking the largest U.S. ground stop since September 11, 2001.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed that while the ground stop has since been lifted, unwinding the resulting travel chaos will take time as stranded passengers wait at airports globally. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin stated there is zero evidence of a cyber-attack or any security threat linked to the outage. Officials continue to investigate the specific root cause of the communications failure, while international carriers, including Canadian airlines, manage cascading delays and cancellations.
