US air travel disruption to last until late Sunday as transport secretary seeks 50 billion dollars to rebuild air traffic control
American air travel is not expected to return to normal schedules until late on Sunday, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration said, as the aviation system gradually recovers from a nationwide flight shutdown that officials blamed on routine maintenance gone awry. As of 9:35 p.m. US Eastern Time on Saturday, November 14, airlines had cancelled more than 6,400 American flights and delayed more than 8,000 that day alone, according to an aviation tracking website. That followed about 9,200 flights cancelled and 7,500 delayed on Friday, after the agency ordered a nationwide ground stop because of disruptions to air traffic communications; a further 875 flights scheduled for Sunday had already been cancelled.
Agency head Bryan Bedford said on Saturday that he expected airline operations to largely return to normal by late Sunday, apologised for the disruption and said the system remains stable. Friday's ground stop halted nearly all departing flights for almost five hours; it was the longest nationwide halt to American air travel since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and one of the single worst travel days in the country's history. The issue prompted the White House to convene an emergency meeting in the Situation Room on Friday and federal agencies to scramble to determine whether it was a cyberattack.
A router at a remote facility
The problem was traced to the installation of at least one new router at a remote facility by the agency's contractor L3Harris, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Saturday. 'We're working to determine whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error or installer error from L3Harris, or did they install a faulty router? We haven't determined what the fault was,' Duffy said. A union representing the agency's safety employees said the issue was isolated to two routers that were updated on Friday, believed by one official to be in Arkansas and Texas; the union said its technicians were not involved in the upgrades. L3Harris said it took the issue seriously and was supporting the investigation; its shares traded down about 4 percent after hours on Friday. An FAA official said a safety assessment had been conducted before the maintenance work.
Overloaded communications centres
Duffy said the trouble began on Friday afternoon, when air traffic control centres experienced instability in radar and communications systems, and the router issue led to data overloading other communications centres. 'We had over 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds, and what that did was give us issues with our communication with airplanes, and it also caused some disruption with our radar,' he said. The issue affected communications at 17 of the agency's 22 en-route centres, which control aircraft during the cruise portion of a flight. Bedford said the ground stop was ordered in case a centre lost all communications: 'No facilities went dark. Nothing was fully lost.' The agency said it was conducting additional testing with L3Harris to see whether there are any further risks.
Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines each cancelled about a quarter of their flights on Saturday, while JetBlue cancelled nearly 45 percent. Airlines issued travel waivers allowing passengers to rebook without cost, but tens of thousands of people remained stranded in airports as airlines tried to get flight crews back into position; some college football teams were stranded on Friday before games scheduled for Saturday.
Fifty billion dollars for an ageing system
Friday's disruption is the latest and most dramatic sign of strain on an American air traffic control system beset by ageing technology, equipment and communications problems, and a shortage of several thousand controllers. Duffy called on Friday for 50 billion dollars in funding to upgrade the system, up from his earlier request of 30 billion, after Congress approved 12.5 billion last year. House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Saturday that he supports approving more funding this year; his Republicans control Congress until next year, when Democrats take over after their November 3 midterm gains. Representatives Rick Larsen and Andre Carson, the Democrats slated next year to chair the House transportation committee and its aviation subcommittee said in a joint statement that their panels will 'hold the administration accountable for what happened to make sure this chaos does not happen again', noting that of last year's 12.5 billion dollars, the Transportation Department has awarded contracts worth 4.3 billion but spent only one billion.