U.S. air travel remained disrupted on Sunday, with thousands of flights delayed or canceled, while the Transportation Secretary warned the situation might not return to normal until Monday.
Foreign news agencies reported that flights in the U.S. continued to face severe problems on Sunday (15 Nov 2023), with over 5,000 flights delayed and more than 2,000 canceled after an air traffic control system failure forced a nationwide flight suspension on Friday (13 Nov).
Sean Duffy, the Transportation Secretary, said the situation might not return to normal until Monday because aircraft and crew were scattered away from their usual positions.
The disruption began on Friday at 15:54 Eastern Time (ET), when the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) temporarily grounded all flights for about four and a half hours, leaving many passengers stranded on planes on runways and waiting overnight at airports, also affecting flight schedules worldwide.
As a result, Friday saw 8,500 flight delays and 8,000 cancellations, while Saturday experienced over 5,900 cancellations and more than 7,000 delays.
On Saturday, Duffy revealed that the turmoil was caused by a failure in the primary communication system between air traffic controllers and pilots, originating from a newly installed router in Eldorado, Arkansas, during an upgrade from copper to fiber optic cables, which sent incorrect signals that destabilized the entire network.
Following the incident, President Donald Trump posted a call for Congress to approve additional funding to comprehensively modernize the air traffic control system, criticizing the current system as outdated and in use for 50 years.
The Transportation Secretary and aviation analysts agreed that the U.S. aviation network has been neglected for decades, deteriorating severely, and urgently requires a complete overhaul to prevent similar issues from recurring.
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Source:bbc