FAA Grounds Every US Flight, Then Lifts Stop Four Hours Later

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide ground stop on Friday afternoon, citing communications problems at regional air traffic control centers, according to an FAA notice. Four hours later, the agency sent out an advisory lifting the stop. By then the damage was done: FlightAware logged 10,343 flight delays within, into or out of the US, along with 1,479 cancellations, and Flightradar24 said more than 1,000 aircraft were bound for the country when the halt was announced.

At New York's John F Kennedy airport, passengers watched their plans vanish in real time — some after they had already boarded. Steve Honberger, flying home to Portland, Oregon, with his wife and daughter, was on a plane about to take off when the shutdown hit. It sat at the gate for an hour and 40 minutes. Crews 'didn't seem to know what's happening, and they wanted to hold off as long as possible,' he said. The family eventually asked to get off and rebook.

Others gambled on showing up anyway. Rashid Kahn, bound for Miami, had heard about the ground stop on the news but said his airline told him the flight might leave at 10 or 11pm. 'I am hopeful,' he said, joking that the timing might be down to 'Friday the 13th.' Tom Rolenaitis was trying to return a Shiba Inu show dog named Tsuki to Finland and called the situation frustrating: 'It's cutting into a three-day trip and I have to get him back to his owner. We have no idea what's happening.'

Relief arrived in stages. International flights began boarding as the day wore on, with applause breaking out at the gates. 'It's moving, so that's good,' an airline representative said. 'But only international is going.' A flight attendant headed for Barcelona, who declined to give his name, said his American Airlines flight faced only a slight delay and that incoming international flights were being allowed to land. A fellow crew member shrugged it off: 'Things happen. Hopefully it will all be resolved.'

Lifting the stop brought a second round of confusion. 'My flight was cancelled, then I go to a kiosk, put my information in and it says I'm leaving at 3am. Then I talk to the desk and they know nothing,' said Larson Welsh, trying to reach Las Vegas from Paris. Only two national ground stops have ever been issued before: on 11 September 2001, after the World Trade Center attack, and in January 2023, after a communications failure.

The shutdown also tangled the sports calendar, leaving NBA, NHL and college teams stranded as they tried to reach their destinations ahead of a big weekend of games. It was unclear whether referees, who usually fly to assignments the day before, would arrive in time. At JFK, Andy, who gave only his first name, had lost his flight to California with no information and no rebooking — his second cancellation in two nights after bad weather. 'It's frustrating. And I'm pissed,' he said. Honberger, for his part, was counting himself lucky: 'There are people sitting on tarmac, so we count ourselves lucky and we were able to book ourselves a hotel for the night.'