Thousands of travelers faced an uncertain night sleeping on airport floors or stuck in agonizingly long queues early Saturday, as many flights remained canceled across the country following a systems failure that grounded all US planes.
Flights resumed at 8:15 p.m. ET. But travel chaos is expected to continue into the weekend as airlines try to clear the huge volumes of displaced planes, passengers, luggage and crew.
Here’s what to know:
• What happened: The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop for all flights in the US Friday afternoon. A ground stop requires aircraft to remain on the ground and bars them from taking off. More than 3,500 airplanes were in the air when it was issued. The order was lifted more than four hours later.
• Travel nightmare: More than 15,000 US flights were either delayed or canceled on Friday and about 3,000 are expected to be delayed or canceled on Saturday, according to flight data tracker FlightAware. With so many aircraft unable to fly, airports ran out of gates and tarmac space to park planes. Some flights have resumed but huge crowds remain stranded at airports around the US as officials warned it will take time to clear the backlog.
• Why planes were grounded: The rare decision to halt all US flights was made after “incredibly old” air traffic control routers became overloaded with data and started to give inconsistent readings, US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the FAA added new technology into an existing framework, which overwhelmed the older system.
• System upgrade: Administration officials said more such incidents will happen until the system is upgraded. President Donald Trump pushed for Congress to pass legislation modernizing air traffic control towers, terminals and other critical infrastructure, according to a source. And Mullin called for a “complete overhaul” of the FAA’s technology systems, which he said could cost about $50 billion.
CNN’s Laura Sharman, Lucas Lilieholm, Kit Maher, Aleena Fayaz, Molly English, and Emma Tucker contributed reporting.
