US Travellers Face Flight Disruptions After Nationwide Grounding
Airlines in the United States are struggling to clear a backlog after a communications failure grounded all departures for about five hours. Nearly 10,000 flights were cancelled, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says recovery will be gradual before the Thanksgiving rush.
Travellers face flight disruptions across the United States this weekend after a communications failure forced a nationwide grounding of departures for about five hours. Airlines are struggling to clear a backlog less than a week before the Thanksgiving travel rush.
Flights have resumed. But carriers warn it could take days for services to return to normal.
The grounding was lifted at 8:15pm Eastern Time after technicians restored the affected systems.
What officials say went wrong
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters that contractor L3Harris had been replacing a section of the air traffic system's old copper wire with new fibre wire. That work somehow caused the system overload, he said, producing "intermittent" communications and radar gaps.
Duffy said officials were investigating whether contractor "incompetence" or a faulty router was to blame. "Our contractor didn't meet the moment or the equipment didn't meet the moment," he said.
He also said aging routers had become overloaded with data, creating inconsistencies in the air traffic control system. "What we have is an incredibly old air traffic control system," Duffy said. "It is the old hardware that went down."
L3Harris said it took the issue seriously and was supporting the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in its investigation. The company said it had completed more than 70 per cent of the planned conversion from legacy copper wires to a fibre-optic system.
Scale of the cancellations
Nearly 10,000 flights were cancelled during the disruption, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24. Delta Air Lines and American Airlines each lost more than 2,200 flights, and United Airlines lost 1,800.
The website reported that some aircraft at major airports waited more than five hours for a gate. Passengers were stranded at airports across the country, and airlines had to rearrange aircraft and crew schedules.
US airlines will not have to compensate stranded passengers. The failure lay in FAA systems rather than with the carriers themselves.
Overseas impact and Thanksgiving
European aviation authorities were asked to suspend US-bound departures during the emergency. A small number of flights from Australia were also affected, with airlines working to clear a backlog of delayed services.
The Australian Travel Industry Association warned that disruption to domestic flights within the US could continue for at least 24 hours. It advised Australians travelling within the next 72 hours to contact their airline or travel agent if they had not received an update.
Industry group Airlines for America forecasts nearly 29 million passengers will fly on US airlines between November 20 and 30. Officials expect operations to return to normal before the holiday rush, but Duffy warned the process would be gradual.
"It is going to take us some time to unwind what has happened," he said.
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