Shannon Stapleton | Portal
Thousands of US flights were delayed Wednesday morning after the Federal Aviation Administration suffered an outage in the system that sends messages to pilots.
The FAA said on its website that domestic departures would be suspended until 9:30 a.m. ET. The agency said it is working to restore the Notice to Air Missions system. All flights currently in the air could be landed safely, said the agency.
The White House said Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg notified President Joe Biden of the outage. “At this time there is no evidence of a cyberattack, but the President has directed the DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a tweet.
More than 3,500 U.S. flights were delayed as of 8:20 a.m. Wednesday, according to FlightAware. Once the ground stop is lifted, residual delays can take hours from backup.
“This technology issue is causing significant operational delays across the National Airspace System,” said Airlines for America, an industry group representing major U.S. airlines including Delta, American, United, Southwest and others.
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas said in a tweet that arriving and departing passengers can expect delays throughout the day.
The incident came just weeks after inclement weather during the busy holiday travel season led to mass flight disruptions across the U.S. and days later more than 15,000 Southwest Airlines flight cancellations after the airline backed away from all schedule changes.
Southwest is preparing to cancel flights Wednesday to avoid further disruption, Southwest Airlines Pilots Association president Casey Murray told CNBC.
Southwest shares were down about 1.5% in premarket trading on Wednesday. Shares of other major airlines were little changed.
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