U.S. air travel was still working through disruption on Sunday after a nationwide ground stop on Friday grounded nearly all departing flights for almost five hours — the longest such halt since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Sunday brought a third day of disruption
The disruption ran into a third day on Sunday. More than 1,600 flights were cancelled and almost 3,600 delayed in the running Sunday count reported by FlightAware, more than 5,200 flights affected in all, and the figures were still rising. JetBlue cancelled 27 percent of its Sunday flights and American Airlines 13 percent, while Southwest, United and Delta each cancelled between 3 and 5 percent. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, making the rounds of the Sunday television shows, said flights would come “back to normal” on Sunday “but probably fully normal” on Monday, because aircraft and crews were left out of position across the country.
Two sites named, and the routers are in a Florida lab
The FAA said Sunday that the flood of data that overwhelmed the network appears to have come from two places: a radar site in Amarillo, Texas, and a radio communications site in El Dorado, Arkansas, where the contractor L3Harris had been installing a new router. When L3Harris blocked the two locations, the network steadied. The broadcasting function believed to have caused the overload has been switched off on the new routers and, as a precaution, on about 60 similar routers across the system. Both routers are now at an L3Harris lab in Florida, where FAA staff are examining them with help from the FBI. Duffy said there is still no root cause and no evidence of a cyberattack, and he promised to tell the public what the review finds. The Wall Street Journal reported that the router installed in Arkansas was a new device made by Juniper Networks, and that a spokesman for Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which owns Juniper, said the devices appeared to have worked as intended: “They did not fail.” Officials have not named the router maker on the record, and other reporting has pointed to older equipment.
Trump speaks, and the blame fight sharpens
President Trump commented for the first time on Sunday, blaming the previous administration in two posts. “The Biden Administration was an FAA disaster,” he wrote, saying his administration has “the knowledge and plan” and that Congress must “give the money, FAST!” In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul had already demanded on Saturday that Duffy resign or be removed, and called on Congress to open a full investigation; a White House spokesperson dismissed her demand. On the other side of the funding fight, Representatives Rick Larsen and André Carson, the Democrats set to lead the House transportation panels next year, pointed to the money Congress approved in 2025: of the $12.5 billion, they said, the administration has obligated $4.3 billion but spent only $1 billion. “Explain to Congress, again, why they need more money?” they asked.
Airlines canceled about 9,200 flights and delayed about 7,500 on Friday, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware. On Saturday, more than 6,400 flights were canceled and more than 8,000 delayed as of 9:35 p.m. ET, and 875 flights scheduled for Sunday were already canceled.
Federal Aviation Administration head Bryan Bedford said Saturday he expected airline operations to largely return to normal by late Sunday. He apologized for the disruption and said the system remains stable.
A router overwhelmed the network
The problem was traced to routine maintenance by FAA contractor L3Harris at a remote facility, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday. A newly installed router fired more than 1,000 connection attempts at other routers every four to five seconds, overwhelming air traffic control communications centers and disrupting some radar feeds.
The fault affected communications at 17 of the FAA’s 22 en route centers, which control aircraft during the cruise portion of a flight. Bedford said the FAA ordered the ground stop in case a center lost all communications. “No facilities went dark. Nothing was fully lost,” he said.
Officials said there was no indication of a cyberattack. The White House convened an emergency meeting in the Situation Room on Friday while federal agencies scrambled to determine whether the failure was an attack.
Duffy said investigators had not yet determined whether the fault was installer error or a faulty router. “We’re working to determine whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error or installer error from L3Harris, or did they install a faulty router? We haven’t determined what the fault was,” he said.
Thousands stranded; airlines waive rebooking fees
Tens of thousands of passengers were stranded at airports. Delta, United and American each canceled about 25% of their Saturday flights, while JetBlue canceled nearly 45%, according to Reuters. Airlines issued travel waivers allowing passengers to rebook later flights without cost.
The disruption even stranded some college football teams on Friday before Saturday games.
Calls for billions to fix aging system
Friday’s shutdown was the latest and most dramatic sign of strain on an air traffic control system beset by aging technology and a shortage of several thousand controllers, Reuters reported.
Duffy called Friday for $50 billion in funding to upgrade air traffic control systems, up from his earlier request of $30 billion, after Congress approved $12.5 billion last year. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Saturday he supports approving more funding for air traffic this year.
Democrats set to chair the House Transportation Committee next year — Rick Larsen and Andre Carson — said in a joint statement Saturday that their panels will “hold the administration accountable for what happened to make sure this chaos does not happen again.”
Sources: Reuters; FlightAware; the Federal Aviation Administration; USA Today; the Wall Street Journal. This is a developing story.
