The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced Friday evening that it had lifted a nationwide ground stop, which had halted all domestic flight departures for roughly four hours. The disruption began earlier in the day and significantly impacted air travel across the United States.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated during a White House press conference that while the airspace has been reopened, restoring normal flight schedules will be a gradual process. "It's going to be slow, right? So if you’re watching, you’re at an airport; check with your airline," Duffy advised passengers.
The agency is working with airline partners to manage the backlog of flights and aircraft. "We’re going to try to move as many of those as we can tonight, if we have the capacity with crews to move those flights," Duffy said. "If not, we’re going to start tomorrow morning with our airline partners, moving those aircraft, but it’s going to take us some time to unwind what’s happened this afternoon."
The duration of the ground stop exceeded a previous outage in 2023 that lasted 90 minutes. The cause of the system disruption has not yet been detailed. Images from airports showed planes grounded on the tarmac and passengers waiting at check-in counters and information screens.
