As a result of problems at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the organization in control of U.S. planes issued a full ground stop of all aircraft and all destinations in the country early on Wednesday morning, resulting in hundreds of flights being delayed or canceled.
Flights were grounded until at least 9 a.m. because of a technical issue, according to the FAA, but it has since removed the ground halt and says that flights are slowly starting to resume. Passengers are encouraged to verify their flights before going to the airport.
According to the flight monitoring company Flight Aware, at least 4,000 flights have so far experienced delays. The morning is likely to see a decline in those numbers. In practice, 44% of Southwest’s daily flights have already been delayed.
Pete Buttigieg, the secretary of transportation, declared he has already spoken with the FAA and will continue to provide updates.
“The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is experiencing a nationwide system outage that affects all airlines,” said American Airlines in a tweet continuing, ” We’re closely monitoring the situation and working with the FAA to minimize customer disruptions.”
In a statement, United said, “The FAA system that sends out important real-time flight hazards and restrictions to all commercial airline pilots — Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) — is currently suffering a nationwide outage. United has temporarily delayed all domestic flights and will issue an update when we learn more from the FAA.”
In a tweet, Southwest claims to be closely observing the situation.