US air travel disruptions continue into third day
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Passengers waiting at their departure gates at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, in Arlington, Virginia, on Nov 14. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has predicted a return to normality by Nov 16.
PHOTO: AFP
- US air travel was disrupted for a third day after a nationwide FAA ground stop on Nov 13, with more than 5,200 flights hit on Nov 15 and normal service expected by Nov 16.
- Officials said the problem began after router work at FAA sites in Arkansas and Texas overloaded air traffic systems. The FAA said it has disabled the “functionality of the originating routers” and about 60 similar routers.
- The incident exposed ageing US air traffic technology and a controller shortage. Sean Duffy wants US$50 billion for upgrades, while Democrats question why more money is needed when about US$11 billion of 2025 funds is still unspent.
AI generated
NEW YORK - US air travel disruptions continued for a third day with more than 5,200 flights already affected on Nov 15, but Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted a return to normality by Nov 16 even as airlines scrambled to get back on schedule following a systemwide ground stop.
More than 1,600 flights nationwide were cancelled and almost 3,600 were delayed on Nov 15, according to aviation data site FlightAware. Airlines on Nov 14 had cancelled more than 6,400 US flights and delayed more than 8,000.
Duffy said on ABC’s This Week programme there is no evidence of a cyberattack or other malicious intent in the matter, but the cause remained unclear.
Duffy said that flights will come “back to normal” on Nov 15 “but probably fully normal” on Nov 16, and emphasised the Federal Aviation Administration’s focus on keeping passengers safe.
On Nov 15, 27% of JetBlue flights and 13% of American Airlines flights were cancelled, with Southwest, United Airlines and Delta reporting cancellations of 3% to 5% of their flights.
The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop on Nov 13 that halted nearly all departing flights for almost five hours. It was the longest nationwide halt to US air travel since the Sept 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States.
The installation by FAA contractor L3Harris of at least one new router at a remote facility led to a situation in which other air traffic control centres were overloaded with a flood of data that hampered communications systems, according to officials.
Duffy said on Nov 15 that the replacement of a router at an FAA facility in El Dorado, Arkansas, triggered problems with a recently replaced router in Amarillo, Texas, which started broadcasting and overloading routers at other air traffic control centres across the country.
The “functionality of the originating routers” has been disabled, the FAA said on Nov 15, adding that it did the same for about 60 similar routers in the air traffic control system.
But the FAA still does not know what ultimately caused the problem that occurred with maintenance work that had been done thousands of times before without issue, Duffy said.
The worker who installed the router was “a good American patriot, we believe, a veteran - so we don’t think that someone tried to sabotage the network on the install,” Duffy said.
“But we don’t actually have the root cause.”
The Nov 13 disruption is the latest and most dramatic sign of strain on a US air traffic control system beset by ageing technology, equipment and communications problems and a shortage of several thousand controllers.
The routers that experienced issues were purchased in 2001 and were obsolete by 2006, Duffy said. Since Nov 13, Duffy has called for US$50 billion (S$64 million) in funding to upgrade air traffic control systems, up from his earlier request of US$30 billion - after Congress approved US$12.5 billion in 2025.
People waiting in line to check in at Los Angeles International Airport after a ground stop was lifted in Los Angeles on Nov 13.
PHOTO: JUSTIN L. STEWART/NYTIMES
Trump weighs in
President Donald Trump on Nov 15 made his first public comments on this weekend’s air travel issues, also calling for additional funding from US lawmakers.
“We have already started the work, but it should be done all at once, not in drips and drabs,” Trump wrote on social media. “Congress must approve.”
Democrats are set to take control of Congress from Trump’s fellow Republicans in January following their gains in the Nov 3 US midterm elections.
Duffy’s plea for more money drew scepticism from US Representatives Rick Larsen and Andre Carson, the top Democrats on the House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and its aviation subcommittee, respectively.
Of the US$12.5 billion approved in 2025 for upgrades to the air traffic control system, about US$11 billion remains unspent, Larsen and Carson said in a statement on Nov 14.
“Explain to Congress, again, why they need more money?” Larsen and Carson asked in their statement.
Duffy on Nov 15 said that the money allocated in 2025 was earmarked only for certain spending, and does not include funds for new software to manage the airspace. REUTERS