FAA Flights Resume After Ground Stop, but Travel Chaos Continues for Days

Ground stop disrupts air travel

The FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop around 3 p.m. Friday, citing extraordinary circumstances and safety. The restriction was lifted later that night, but its effects continued as airlines worked to restore aircraft and crew schedules.

More than 6,600 flights were canceled, leaving travelers stranded and disrupting journeys across the country. Chicago O’Hare recorded 395 cancellations, while Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson had more than 350 at the time reported.

Delta Air Lines Flight 958, traveling from Los Angeles to New York’s JFK, turned back nearly four hours into its trip. The Boeing 767 diverted to Cincinnati at 4:11 p.m.

Officials describe system problem

At a press conference, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the FAA had experienced “inconsistency” in data systems used to communicate with aircraft. He said about 3,000 flights were in the air when the stop was issued and that each landed safely with alternative systems.

Duffy said older hardware had failed, while newer IP switches he said he had replaced with President Trump did not go down. Duffy and Mullin said the fault was not connected to AI or cybersecurity.

Duffy said officials were still examining what caused the problem and how to prevent another incident. Asked whether it could happen again, he said he could not guarantee it would not.

AI link remains disputed

Questions arose about SMART, a new FAA AI tool for air traffic control that began deploying this week. Mullin said earlier Friday, “That’s what we’re looking at,” when asked whether the tool might be related to the outage. ASI, the company that makes SMART for the FAA, said Friday’s issues were not caused by its system, products, or integration with the FAA and air traffic control.