Flights start taking off again after ground stop in the United States

Authorities assured passengers that U.S. airspace was safe and operational after a nationwide ground stop which was initiated out of caution has caused massive travel disruptions.

The longest flight shutdown in 25 years lasted more than four hours and ended around 8:15 p.m. ET Friday, allowing some domestic flights to depart from U.S. airports.

Of the 41,000 flights scheduled for Saturday, more than 6,400 had been canceled by Saturday evening, according to FlightAware. More than 800 flights scheduled for Sunday were canceled, according to the press release.

But officials said the air traffic control system was operational and expected airline schedules to fully recover by the end of Sunday, improving ahead of the Thanksgiving travel rush.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication the failure was linked to a cyberattack and no lives were in danger.

Here’s what you need to know:

Flights have resumed but disruptions persist

Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bryan Bedford said Saturday the system was stable. Several thousand flights were able to take off after the stopover, but ultimately, some 12,000 scheduled flights were unable to take off on Friday, he said.

Authorities acknowledged the disruption but said safety was paramount.

Bedford apologized to stranded travelers and thanked air traffic controllers, pilots and flight attendants for handling the fallout. He said officials were confident the system was working safely or they would keep the planes on the ground.

Airlines waive change fees for affected passengers

Airlines are required to offer a free rebooking on another flight or a full refund in the event of a flight cancellation.

Bedford said the administration was working closely with the airlines and said they were waiving all terms and conditions.

Some airlines allowed passengers to change their reservation if they had a trip planned for Friday or Saturday. Others have extended the offer to people who have booked for Sunday or even Monday.

Bedford advised passengers to contact their airline.

The system was overloaded while part was being upgraded

A contractor was replacing a section of the system’s old copper wire with new fiber wire at a remote location Friday afternoon, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday. This kind of work has been done across the country and across sectors for decades, he said.

But on Friday, the router there began overloading the air traffic control system and causing intermittent disruptions to communications and radar signals. When authorities could not quickly locate the cause of the overload, they grounded flights nationwide.

“We did it out of an abundance of caution,” Bedford said. “I’m sorry for putting you through this, but we did it for the right reasons.”

Officials stressed that the ground stop was not the result of a system failure or nefarious activity by a foreign actor. Duffy said officials are investigating whether a contractor error or a faulty router was the cause.

Air traffic control modernization began last year after Congress approved $12.5 billion in funding. Duffy and the White House are asking for an additional $30 billion to complete the work. About 70% of the copper wires have already been replaced with fiber, officials said Saturday.

Microsoft outage was not shutdown-related

Microsoft said Saturday that services had been fully restored after its own massive outage. According to federal officials and a company spokesperson, there is no indication that the FAA ground stop is related to the service outage that took Microsoft services offline Thursday.

More than 430 million people use Microsoft 365 apps, Microsoft said on its website. Users reported that Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Teams, and the AI ​​assistant Copilot, had been disrupted.