The FAA halted departures at every U.S. airport on Friday afternoon, November 13, issuing a rare nationwide ground stop just before 4 p.m. Eastern “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the order followed a communication issue affecting all of the country’s Air Route Traffic Control Centers, the facilities that guide aircraft at cruising altitude between airports, and that FAA technicians were investigating. Trouble surfaced first in Chicago, where the FAA had already stopped traffic at O’Hare and Midway over an equipment outage. Flights already in the air, more than 3,100 of them by one count, were allowed to continue to their destinations.
The disruption spread quickly. By 6:04 p.m. Eastern, FlightAware counted 1,913 cancellations and 10,494 delays involving U.S. flights, with both numbers expected to keep climbing through the evening. Every flight at Raleigh-Durham was reported delayed or cancelled, at least 114 aircraft sat waiting on the ground at O’Hare according to Flighty, and terminals were crowded at Los Angeles, where United said air traffic control was limiting how many planes could land and depart each hour. International flights bound for the U.S. were being handled case by case.
Officials have not named a cause. A revised FAA statement pointed to impacts on air traffic control frequencies and radar, and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin called it a telecommunications outage, saying there was no indication of a nefarious attack, though he gave no timeline for a full restart. AirSpace Intel, whose new AI airspace tool rolled out this week, said the stop was not caused by its system. Shortly after 6 p.m. Eastern the FAA said the ground stop remained in effect but that departures would be released as en route facilities recovered. It is the first nationwide ground stop since a failure of the FAA’s NOTAM system in January 2023.
If you are flying this weekend, check your airline’s app before heading to the airport. Delta has issued a waiver letting passengers change Friday and Saturday flights at no extra cost. United is waiving change fees and fare differences for customers who rebook onto a United flight departing between November 12 and November 20, in the same cabin and between the same cities. Even once departures resume, aircraft and crews stranded out of position could push delays and cancellations into Saturday. This story reflects information available as of Friday evening, and the situation was still developing.
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