A nationwide ground stop on Friday evening left thousands of passengers stranded and set off a wave of cancellations that was still rippling through the system on Saturday, with airlines canceling thousands of flights as they worked to recover. Bryan Bedford said the air traffic control system is expected to be back to normal by Sunday night, but travelers were still facing delays while schedules were reset.
The disruption hit the air traffic network hard enough for officials to order a rare nationwide ground stop for hours after communications failures spread across air traffic facilities. In practice, that meant flights already on the board were delayed, crews and planes were out of position, and airlines had to start the slow work of rebuilding schedules while passengers waited for news that kept changing.
Sean Duffy said the problem began during a routine task by L3Harris to replace copper wire with more modern fiber optic cable. Federal officials said the switch overwhelmed the system with levels of data it could not handle, though administration officials also said it was still unclear whether L3Harris or faulty equipment was to blame. That uncertainty has become the central question behind the disruption, because officials said there was no evidence the problem was caused by a cyberattack.
Duffy said there was no evidence that nefarious activity or the agency's recent efforts to equip its air traffic control facilities with assistive A.I. technology had played a role. He also asked for $50 billion on Friday to modernize the air traffic control system, while last year Congress approved $12.5 billion to help pay for upgrades to the air traffic communications system. Speaker Mike Johnson said Saturday morning that he would seek to increase F.A.A. funding in an aggressive legislative package before Democrats take control of both chambers.
The scale of the recovery is why the pain will not end with the ground stop itself. Airlines may take several days to juggle schedules, rebook passengers and reposition planes after the disruption, and the backlog from Friday was still being worked through on Saturday. The system may be close to normal by Sunday night, but the larger issue has not been resolved: whether this was a failure of equipment, a failed upgrade or both.
