FAA Nationwide Ground Stop Halts U.S. Flights for Over Four Hours After Telecom Outage
A telecommunications outage forced the FAA to issue a nationwide ground stop on November 14, grounding flights for more than four hours and causing thousands of cancellations and delays across the U.S. and Canada. Officials attributed the failure to aging infrastructure and ruled out a cyberattack.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a nationwide ground stop order on Friday, November 14, after telecommunications issues began affecting air traffic control systems at 3:36 p.m. ET. The formal ground stop order was issued at approximately 3:53 p.m. ET and remained in effect until it was lifted at 8:15 p.m. ET, ending a shutdown that lasted more than four hours. 
The halt affected 22 regional air traffic control centres and caused widespread travel chaos across the United States and Canada, stranding passengers at airports including Vancouver International Airport, Toronto Pearson, Montreal-Trudeau, Edmonton, Calgary, Boston Logan International Airport, Washington's Dulles International, San Francisco, and Chicago. Air Canada cancelled flights to and from the United States for the remainder of the evening due to the FAA ground stop, and disruption extended to international flights using American airspace. A long-term backlog is expected to take days to clear.
Flight tracking data cited by news outlets varied. CBC News cited FlightAware data showing approximately 6,700 flights cancelled and 8,600 delayed by the time the order was lifted. The Guardian, also citing FlightAware, reported 10,543 flight delays and 3,580 cancellations within, into, or out of the U.S.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated the outage was caused by an "incredibly old air traffic control system" being overloaded by new upgrades. In response, Duffy requested $50 billion from Congress to rebuild the air traffic control system, increasing a previous request of $30 billion. According to Global News, Congress approved $12.5 billion for the overhaul last year, and the FAA and White House had asked for another $30.1 billion. The event has intensified political pressure on Congress to fund infrastructure upgrades.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin confirmed there was no indication of a cyberattack and denied any connection to a recent Microsoft outage. 
This event marks only the second or third nationwide ground stop in modern American aviation history. CBC News described it as the second such halt since the September 11, 2001 attacks, with the previous one occurring in January 2023, while Global News referred to it as the third ever in American aviation history.