US air travel ground stop lifted, flights set to resume

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The US Federal Aviation Administration has lifted a nationwide ground stop after a communications failure at air traffic control centres triggered the longest nationwide shutdown…

The US Federal Aviation Administration has lifted a nationwide ground stop after a communications failure at air traffic control centres triggered the longest nationwide shutdown since the 11 September 2001 attacks.

More than 6,600 flights were canceled and 8,600 delayed, with another 1,500 already canceled for Sunday, according to FlightRadar24

Over 1.5 million passengers were scheduled to depart US airports after 4pm ET (2100 GMT), shortly after the ground stop began, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

Aviation analysts said the four-hour nationwide grounding could disrupt airline schedules for days.

'Old hardware' was to blame for the US air travel stoppage, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters at a White House press briefing.

Mr Duffy said switches and routers had become overloaded with data and went down.

The FAA lifted the ground stop after more than four hours, but Mr Duffy warned that it would take time for air traffic operations to return to full capacity.

The Department of Homeland Security said there were no signs the outage was caused by a cyberattack.

The shutdown came on the same day the White House and Transportation Department sought another $30.1 billion (€27.3bn) from Congress to upgrade airports and air traffic control, including $10.1bn for air traffic control modernisation.

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