US reopens airspace, but flight cancellations continue
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blames decades-old analog equipment and says it is safe to fly. Airlines are still repositioning planes and crews.
The FAA lifted its nationwide ground stop on departures Friday at 8:15 p.m. ET (7:15 p.m. in Mexico City), ending the halt in takeoffs that followed a telecommunications failure.
Recovery was gradual. On Saturday morning, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said traffic was returning to normal and that "it is safe to fly." Delays and cancellations will continue as airlines reposition aircraft and crews, he warned, and he urged passengers to check with their carrier.
The failures began at 3:36 p.m. ET (2:36 p.m. in Mexico City) at control facilities and approach centers nationwide, Duffy said. More than 3,500 planes were in the air when the order came; by 8 p.m. ET, fewer than 400 were. The agency kept part of its radar and communications. Medical flights, emergency cargo and law enforcement flights were exempt.
Duffy blamed the shutdown on an air traffic control system running on decades-old analog equipment that cannot handle current demand, and he asked Congress to pass the Modern Skies Act. Lawmakers have already provided $12.5 billion to modernize the system, he said, and it is not enough. By his count, 70% of telecommunications lines now have high-speed fiber, 469 radio sites have been upgraded and 143 towers have surface-awareness technology. Another 25 swapped paper strips for electronic ones.
The exact technical cause has not been confirmed. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said alongside Duffy that there was no sign of malicious activity.
No such order had been issued since January 2023, when the system that warns pilots of hazards en route failed.
What the GAO warned in September
A September report from the GAO, Congress's auditing arm, found that the modernization program lacks a master schedule: the FAA is running 11,389 project schedules that are not coordinated with one another. As of May, it had replaced 2,560 of 5,170 copper cables with fiber optics. The report does not show that this work caused the failure, but it describes a system with simultaneous work at the same sites.
What it means for travelers to and from Mexico
Anyone flying to or from the United States, including routes to and from Mexico, may run into cancellations or rerouting over the weekend. Flight trackers, which are not official figures, counted more than 10,000 delays and thousands of cancellations on Friday, and cancellations continued Saturday. Airport status is available on the FAA's NAS Status page, and travelers should confirm their flight with the airline before heading to the airport.
