FAA ground stop aftermath cancels thousands of Saturday flights: What to know

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said air traffic operations resumed after a telecommunications failure prompted Friday’s ground stop.

The Details

Officials are investigating whether faulty equipment or a contractor’s installation error caused the outage and do not suspect a cyberattack.

More than 2,500 U.S. flights were canceled Saturday after Friday’s disruptions canceled more than 9,000 flights.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday that air traffic operations had fully resumed after a telecommunications problem disrupted flights Friday, prompting a ground stop while about 3,500 aircraft were airborne.

What they're saying

At a news conference, Duffy said preliminary findings pointed to work at a remote Federal Aviation Administration location, where contractor L3Harris was replacing aging copper telecommunications lines with fiber.

A router involved in that work began flooding other routers with more than 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds, disrupting communications with aircraft and some radar feeds, Duffy said.

Officials were still determining whether the problem stemmed from a faulty router or an installation error. Duffy said authorities did not believe a cyberattack was responsible.

"Once we were able to isolate the work that was being done at this remote location, all of our systems came back online," he said.

Duffy credited air traffic controllers and pilots with safely landing the aircraft and thanked passengers for their patience during the disruption.

He also urged Congress to provide additional funding to modernize the air traffic control system. Duffy said the FAA has replaced 69% of its copper communications with high-speed fiber as part of upgrades supported by $12.5 billion Congress provided.

"Americans want less delays. They want less cancellations," Duffy said.

3,000+ flights cancelled after nationwide ground stop

Nationwide flight delays and cancellations continue following Friday's ground stop. As of Saturday morning more than 3,000 flights have been cancelled and 1,000 are delayed despite the ground stop being lifted.

By the numbers

More than 2,500 flights were canceled in the U.S. on Saturday and hundreds more were delayed, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks flight disruptions.

An airport departures board displaying multiple flights marked as canceled is seen in Krakow, Poland, on November 14, 2026. The cancellations follow a nationwide flight ground stop ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after a communic Expand That’s on top of more than 9,000 canceled flights and 7,000 delayed flights on Friday.

Why was the FAA ground stop issued?

The backstory

At a press conference Friday night, the Trump administration said new technology being added to the nation’s air traffic control system overloaded older equipment.

No indication ground stop was related to cyberattack, DHS says Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said Friday that there is no indication the FAA's communications failure that caused an hours-long nationwide ground stop was related to a cyberattack. LiveNOW's Alexandra Goldberg has more.

The overload caused "intermittent" communications and radar gaps, which led to the ground stop.

What they're saying

"We didn’t think we would have this kind of outage. We did," Duffy said.

The air traffic control upgrades began last year after Congress approved $12.5 billion of funding. Duffy and the White House are now pushing for $30 billion more to complete the work.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there is no indication the failure was related to a cyberattack.

"There was never any lives at risk," Mullin added. "There was no flights at risk. FAA was able to handle it. We did it."

The ground stop was enacted "out of an abundance of caution," he said.

It ended around 8:15 p.m. ET Friday.

Will passengers get refunds?

What you can do

Airlines are obligated to offer free rebooking on another flight for travelers who want to continue their journey, or a refund if their flight was canceled and they decide not to take the trip.

Delta and United announced they were offering travel waivers.

Airlines issue travel waivers during national ground stop

Passengers should contact their airlines for information about their flights and any potential compensation, the FAA said.

Dig deeper

A new rule that went into effect last month could make it harder for airline customers to get compensated.

Effective Oct. 19, the Department of Transportation removed 10 events from being considered "within an airline's control," removing the ability for flyers to be compensated.

Nationwide ground stop: How new DOT rule could affect compensation for flight delays Among the 10 events are "government system failures," or unexpected shutdowns or technical failures of government systems that directly impact safe flight operations.

What about Thanksgiving travel?

What's next

Duffy suggested more disruptions might occur in coming days, but officials say the system is likely to be operating normally in time to handle the Thanksgiving travel rush.

The Source

This article includes information from The Associated Press, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and previous FOX Local reporting.