US air travel not expected to return to normal schedules until late on Sunday: FAA head

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Federal Aviation Administration head Bryan Bedford said on Saturday that he expected airline operations to largely return to normal by late Sunday. | World News

US air travel is not expected to return to normal schedules until late on Sunday, the head of the FAA said, as the aviation system gradually recovers from a nationwide flight shutdown that officials blamed on routine maintenance gone awry.

As of 9:35 p.m. ET (0235 GMT), airlines on Saturday had canceled more than 6,400 US flights and delayed more than 8,000, according to FlightAware, an aviation website. That followed about 9,200 flights canceled and 7,500 delayed on Friday after the FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop because of disruptions to air traffic communications. FlightAware said 875 flights scheduled for Sunday were already canceled.

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Federal Aviation Administration head Bryan Bedford said on Saturday that he expected airline operations to largely return to normal by late Sunday. He also apologized for the disruption, adding that the system remains stable.

The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop on Friday that halted nearly all departing flights for almost five hours. It was the longest nationwide halt to air travel since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and one of the single worst US travel days ever.

The issue prompted the White House to convene an emergency meeting in the Situation Room on Friday and federal agencies to scramble to determine if it was a cyberattack. But the problem was traced to FAA contractor L3Harris' installation of at least one new router at a remote facility, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Saturday.

"We're working to determine whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error or installer error from L3Harris, or did they install a faulty router? We haven't determined what the fault was," Duffy said at a press conference.

The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, a union representing FAA safety employees, said the issue was isolated to two routers that were updated Friday.

An FAA official said the agency conducted a…

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