A major system outage disrupted air travel across the US on Wednesday. The Federal Aviation Authority ordered a temporary halt to all domestic flight departures to restore its Notice to Air Missions system, a critical system that alerts commercial airlines to real-time flight hazards and restrictions.
The FAA lifted the grounding shortly before 9 a.m. ET, saying normal air traffic operations were beginning to resume. Nearly 5,000 flights in or into the US had been delayed Wednesday with more than 700 cancellations, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware.
Update 5: Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted.
We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem
— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023
“Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted,” the FAA said in a tweet on Wednesday.
Major airports across the country urged people to check their flight status, and airlines including American and United said they were monitoring the situation.
The FAA is looking into the cause of the initial problem.