Thousands Of Flights Cancelled As Airlines Work To ‘Dig Out’ Post-Ground Stop
Airlines continued efforts Saturday to restore schedules after Friday’s nationwide Federal Aviation Administration ground stop, which amounted to the longest such order since the September 11 attacks.
By mid-afternoon, FlightAware reported more than 5,300 U.S. flights canceled and nearly 6,300 delayed, following roughly 9,200 cancellations and 7,500 delays on Friday. Major carriers including Delta, United, and American each canceled about 25 percent of Saturday flights, while JetBlue canceled nearly 45 percent.
Combined disruptions on Saturday exceeded 10,000 flights into or out of the United States at some tracking points, JP reported.
The ground stop, which was issued just before 4 p.m. Eastern Time Friday and lifted around 8:15 p.m., stemmed from work by contractor L3Harris replacing aging copper telecommunications lines with fiber at a remote FAA facility. A newly installed router began flooding others on the network, producing intermittent communications and radar issues across air route traffic control centers.
Officials isolated the affected equipment, took the router offline, and restarted systems. More than 3,500 aircraft already airborne landed safely. Of roughly 20,000 flights scheduled during the stop, about 12,000 — including commercial, private, and general aviation — could not operate as planned.
By Saturday morning, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced that FAA systems were “back at full operations.”
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🚨 Another ground stop was just announced at @FLLFlyer in Fort Lauderdale airport.
They say the @FAANews has announced another stop due to too many flights in the air.
This is getting more and more disappointing.@SecDuffy @SecDuffy if you don’t have engineers and… pic.twitter.com/DhAdluQ6MK
— Robert J Salvador (@RobertJSalvador) November 14, 2026
Saturday’s additional cancellations stemmed from staffing issues and the need to re-position aircraft following the nearly five-hour stoppage.Hardest-hit hubs included Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, Chicago O’Hare, New York’s John F. Kennedy, and Dallas-Fort Worth.
At Indianapolis International, cancellations fell from more than 150 early in the day to around 45 by mid-morning. Traveler Tonya Owens, a 56-year-old nurse headed to Miami for a cruise, told USAToday that her family had waited since 3:30 a.m. after original seats were reassigned, forcing her family to consider roughly $1,600 in new one-way tickets or a refund.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford projected 4,000 to 5,000 of the roughly 41,000 scheduled Saturday flights would be canceled. He reported that the air traffic control system was stable and that on-time arrivals were increasing.
“We will still have delays and cancellations today, but that will set us up for a full recovery tomorrow,” Bedford said. He added that, based on airline partners’ assessments, “they believe that they’ll be able to have full schedule integrity by the close of business on Sunday.”
Only dozens of Sunday cancellations had been logged by late Saturday, consistent with that timeline. Duffy and Bedford both noted that no facilities went fully dark and that the incident highlighted longstanding reliance on legacy equipment, even as newer systems continued operating.
Airlines advised customers to check status before heading to airports and offered flexible rebooking.
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