FAA Ground Stop Update: Schedule Recovery Set for Sunday as Sean Duffy Warns 'You Will Have More of These'

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) expects US flight schedules to recover by Sunday evening after a nationwide ground stop on Friday, 13 November.

But Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has warned that further outages could occur as the country replaces ageing air traffic control equipment.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford gave the recovery forecast on Saturday, while cautioning that flight delays and cancellations would continue.

Officials said new technology installed during a modernisation project had overloaded older systems, causing intermittent communications and radar gaps.

The shutdown lasted more than four hours before departures resumed on Friday evening. It was the country's first nationwide ground stop since January 2023 and its second since the 11 September 2001 attacks.

Flight Disruptions Continue Across the US and UK

Saturday brought another round of disruption as airlines sought to reposition aircraft and crews. FlightAware recorded more than 4,100 cancellations, while aviation data provider Cirium reported more than 3,200.

The figures reflected different tracking services rather than a single agreed total.

Andrew Charlton, managing director of Aviation Advocacy, estimated that Friday's stoppage affected about a quarter of the 45,000 flights operating daily in the United States.

He explained that an aircraft delayed on one route could miss several subsequent journeys, spreading the disruption across the network.

The effects reached Britain. Several flights between London's Heathrow Airport and the United States were listed as delayed or cancelled on Saturday.

Tim Johnson, consumer director at the UK Civil Aviation Authority, warned that airlines might need additional time to rebook travellers and restore services, even though American departures had resumed.

The disruption also derailed personal plans. Emily Brown told the Associated Press that she and her 14-year-old daughter waited over four hours at a Dallas airport before abandoning their flight to Columbus, Ohio.

Her daughter had saved money for the ticket and planned to surprise a friend.

Sports teams were affected too. Mississippi's college football game against Oklahoma was moved from Saturday to Sunday after travel arrangements were disrupted.

Duffy Warns of Further Outages During Modernisation

Duffy said the trouble emerged while a contractor replaced old copper wiring with fibre-optic technology.

Investigators were examining whether a faulty router or contractor error caused the overload. Those possibilities had not been established as the final cause.

The transportation secretary acknowledged that officials had not expected such a serious outage. He warned, 'But, you will have more of these.'

Congress approved $12.5 billion ( £9.46 billion) for air traffic control modernisation in 2025.

Duffy and the White House are seeking another $30 billion ( £22.70 billion), while the FAA continues replacing outdated wiring and radio equipment.

Duffy said the incident was unrelated to a new FAA artificial intelligence system intended to anticipate aviation problems.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said more than 3,000 aircraft already in the air when flights were grounded had landed safely. He maintained that passengers had not been endangered.

Earlier equipment failures disrupted flights around Newark and across the northeastern United States. Friday's outage, however, stretched nationwide, leaving investigators to establish precisely why an equipment upgrade interrupted the network.