US flights resume after FAA lifts nationwide ground stop
A telecommunications outage affecting air traffic control centres caused more than 10,000 flight delays and cancellations on Friday.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted a nationwide ground stop at United States airports on Friday, November 13, 2026, after a communication issue halted take-offs for approximately four hours. According to The Hindu, the agency described the disruption as a temporary telecommunications outage that occurred out of an abundance of caution.
The outage impacted all 22 air route traffic control centres. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy attributed the chaos to legacy hardware, stating that old switches and routers became overloaded with data and provided inconsistent information. He noted that the system used 1980s copper lines.
The disruption resulted in more than 10,000 flights being delayed or cancelled. Al Jazeera reported that while the ground stop was lifted at 8:15 pm Eastern time, airlines still face challenges as they work to reposition aircraft and crews.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin stated there was no sign of a threat to the country or a connection to Microsoft. While he noted there was no indication of a nefarious attack, he told reporters at the White House that authorities were continuing their investigation and had not ruled out a cyberattack.
Following the incident, Secretary Duffy called on Congress to provide funds to modernise the air traffic control system. He previously requested $30.1 billion for upgrades, but according to the New York Post, he has since asked for $50 billion to build a state-of-the-art system.
