US flight disruption could last several more days, FAA warns

The disruption to air travel across the United States could last several more days, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has warned. The agency said the situation could continue until Sunday night (15 November), according to a Reuters report.

According to the flight-tracking website FlightAware, by 9:35 p.m. on Saturday (14 November) more than 6,400 flights in the United States had been cancelled and more than 8,000 delayed. A further 875 flights scheduled for Sunday had already been cancelled.

On Friday, air travel was halted nationwide on the FAA's orders. About 9,200 flights were cancelled that day and 7,500 delayed. After the FAA issued the order because of a fault during routine maintenance work, most aircraft departures across the country were suspended for about five hours.

Officials said the nationwide chaos that followed is gradually easing. FAA chief Bryan Bedford said on Saturday that he hoped the air travel system would be largely back to normal by Sunday night. He apologised for the situation and said the system was now stable.

Reuters reported that it was the longest nationwide shutdown of flight operations in the United States since the attacks of 11 September 2001.

At a press conference on Saturday afternoon local time, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the problem was mainly caused by the FAA contractor L3Harris installing a new router at a remote centre.

Duffy said investigators were trying to establish whether there had been any incompetence — whether it was an operating error by L3Harris staff, an installation error, or a faulty router — and that the actual fault had not yet been confirmed.

The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS), the union representing FAA safety employees, said the problem was limited to two routers that had been updated on Friday. An official told Reuters the two routers were believed to be located in Arkansas and Texas.

An FAA official said the agency had carried out a safety assessment before the work began. The union, however, said the technicians represented by PASS were not involved in the upgrade work blamed for the ground stop.

L3Harris said it was taking the matter very seriously and was assisting the FAA's investigation.