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Airlines hope for return to normal Thursday after FAA outage snarls U.S. travel
![Airlines hope for return to normal Thursday after FAA outage snarls U.S. travel]()
The U.S. aviation sector was struggling to return to normal on Wednesday following a nationwide ground stop imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over a computer issue that forced a 90-minute halt to all U.S. departing flights. Airlines hope for return to normal Thursday after FAA outage snarls U.S. travel
The U.S. aviation sector was struggling to return to normal on Wednesday following a nationwide ground stop imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over a computer issue that forced a 90-minute halt to all U.S. departing flights.
Thousands of flights across the U.S. were canceled or delayed Wednesday after a government system that offers safety and other information to pilots broke down, stranding some planes on the ground for hours.
The White House said there was no evidence that a cyberattack triggered the outage, which upended travel plans for millions of passengers. President Joe Biden said he directed the Department of Transportation to investigate.
More than 8,775 flights have been delayed so far and over 1,270 canceled, according to FlightAware, in the first national grounding of flights in about two decades. Many industry officials compared the grounding to what occurred after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
The total number of flights disrupted topped 10,000 and was still rising but airline officials expressed confidence that normal operations could largely return by Thursday.
Major carriers like Southwest Airlines , United Airlines , Delta Air Lines and American Airlines all reported 40% or more of flights Wednesday delayed or canceled.
The cause of the problem with a pilot-alerting messaging system was unclear, but U.S. officials said they had so far found no evidence of a cyberattack. U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said an issue with safety messages sent to pilots prompted the outage.
