10,000 flights delayed as DOT demands $50 billion to prevent another huge FAA fiasco

Officials seek major system overhaul

At a Friday evening press conference, Duffy said the administration wants $50 billion to replace hardware and software that has been in use since the 1980s. He said the system can no longer manage the volume of data passing through it.

Mullin called for a complete replacement rather than assembling improvements gradually. He said, “We need one complete system,” and argued that piecemeal spending had not worked.

Aging equipment disrupted communications

Mullin and Duffy said outdated switches and routers became overloaded with data and failed. The disruption affected communications at multiple air-route traffic-control centers. Duffy urged members of Congress to provide funding to address the problem. He also asked how many incidents would occur before lawmakers approved the money.

Ground stop caused flight disruption

The FAA halted departures across the United States on Friday as a safety precaution. Aircraft already in the air continued to their destinations or were diverted when necessary.

The ground stop ended around 8:15 pm ET. Airlines then faced the task of repositioning planes and crews; roughly 10,000 flights were delayed and nearly 5,000 canceled, according to Business Insider’s count.

Cause remains under investigation

Officials said they had seen no evidence that a cyberattack caused the failure. They also reported no evidence of system failures connected to artificial intelligence. The precise cause of the outage remains under investigation.