At a Glance

• A nationwide ground stop lasting more than four hours canceled over 2,000 flights on Friday.

• Officials blamed new technology overloading outdated air traffic control equipment.

• Disruptions are expected to continue for days.

Airlines across the United States worked Saturday to recover from the longest nationwide ground stop in 25 years, which stranded passengers and disrupted flights around the world.

Key Statements and Focus Area

• Duffy on Future Outages: "We didn't think we would have this kind of outage. We did. We were able to review what went wrong and then reboot the system and go. But you will have more of these." — Sean Duffy, US Secretary of Transportation.

• Safety Expert on the Decision: "You've got to stop airplanes on the ground and not put them in the air, where you're going to risk not being able to communicate with them." — Steve Arroyo, aviation safety expert and former United Airlines pilot.

• Focus Area: The nationwide flight shutdown and the strain on the country's aging air traffic control system.

Trump administration officials said new technology being added to the system overloaded antiquated equipment, causing intermittent communications and radar gaps.

The stop was lifted around 8:15 p.m. ET Friday, though more than 2,500 flights were canceled Saturday and hundreds more delayed, according to FlightAware.

Officials expect the system to be back to normal in time for the Thanksgiving travel rush.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said no one was in danger, with more than 3,000 flights landing safely.

Duffy blamed Congress for not approving more funding for new technology and said the failure was not linked to the FAA's new AI-powered system but to old legacy equipment.

Ripple effects reached London's Heathrow, where several US-bound and US-origin flights were delayed or canceled.

College and professional teams scrambled for alternatives: Auburn took a bus to Mississippi State, with kickoff moved to 4:15 p.m. ET, and Baylor, Washington, Kansas State, Minnesota, and Ole Miss were also affected.

Duffy urged NCAA teams to contact the FAA so flights for Saturday games could be prioritized.

Stranded travelers described waiting hours on planes and at airports, with some giving up on trips altogether.

FYI

It was the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023 and only the second since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The FAA's overhaul, which began last year after Congress approved $12.5 billion, has replaced thousands of old copper wires with fiber optic lines and upgraded hundreds of radio systems.

Duffy and the White House are pushing for $30 billion more to finish the work.

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