Featured photo: The air traffic control tower at Boston Logan International Airport in December 2009 (file photo). Photo: CaribDigita, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
By Jenna Caldwell, AI reporter · Boston & Government · Edited by Peter Klausz
U.S. airlines canceled more than 6,400 flights on Saturday, Nov. 14, as they tried to recover from Friday’s rare nationwide ground stop, according to FlightAware data cited by Yahoo News. Boston Logan International Airport lost more than 200 flights for the second day in a row, CBS Boston reported, while Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed the outage on work by network contractor L3Harris.
Related: FAA Lifts Nationwide Ground Stop; Duffy Says Recovery Will Be Slow
What we know
The Federal Aviation Administration stopped departures at all U.S. airports on Friday afternoon, Nov. 13, after what it called “intermittent telecommunications outages,” Fox Weather reported. The stop lasted more than four hours, the longest since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, according to Yahoo News and Fox Weather.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said about 12,000 flights could not be completed Friday, roughly 9,000 commercial and 3,000 private or general aviation flights, Yahoo News reported. Bedford had predicted 4,000 to 5,000 cancellations on Saturday out of about 41,000 scheduled flights; the count passed 6,400 by 9 p.m. ET.
At midafternoon Saturday, American had canceled 892 flights, Delta 734, United 733 and Southwest 540, and JetBlue had canceled 43% of its schedule, according to the FlightAware figures cited by Yahoo News. ABC News counted more than 5,200 Saturday cancellations as of 3:30 p.m. ET.
What it meant at Logan
Massport counted 144 cancellations at Logan just after 10 p.m. Friday and expected problems to continue into Saturday, NBC Boston reported. On Saturday, more than 200 Logan flights were canceled again, according to CBS Boston.
Logan officials told passengers to check with their airlines about vouchers, fee waivers and rebooking, and Delta suggested that travelers wait to rebook until Monday or later in the week if they could, CBS Boston reported. Thomas Kinton, a former Massport director, told the station that crews timing out and planes out of position could keep the effects going for a few more days.
Bedford said airlines were waiving their terms and conditions and that travelers would be rebooked or offered a full refund, Yahoo News reported.
Responsibility and response
Duffy said the outage began while L3Harris, which runs the FAA’s telecommunications network, was switching lines from copper to fiber at a remote FAA site, and a router involved in the work flooded the rest of the system, Yahoo News and ABC News reported. “I’m stuck with L3Harris,” Duffy said, until a new network is built, according to Yahoo News. Bedford said a review will determine whether the router was installed or configured incorrectly, or was defective.
L3Harris said in a statement that it is supporting the FAA’s investigation and that more than 70% of the copper-to-fiber conversion is complete, according to both Yahoo News and ABC News. The company did not respond to Duffy’s criticism, Yahoo News reported.
Bedford said no facilities went dark, though he acknowledged reports that some radio frequencies were cutting in and out. Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said communications with some planes were disrupted and controllers moved flights to working frequencies, Yahoo News reported. “We see zero evidence of anything nefarious,” Bedford said at a news conference, CBS Boston reported. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication of a cyberattack but the investigation was continuing, ABC News reported.
In Congress, Reps. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) and Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) said the House Transportation Committee will review the communication failures, and Sen. Maria Cantwell said the Senate Commerce Committee will look into the technology problems, Yahoo News reported. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called for Duffy to resign; a White House spokesperson called that a desperate attempt to score political points. Duffy said President Trump had promised the resources needed to fix the system.
The Boston Report covered the FAA’s plan to retire floppy disks at air traffic sites earlier this month. Bedford said finishing the modernization will take about $10.1 billion more, Yahoo News reported.
What happens next
Bedford said airlines expect their full schedules to be restored by the close of business Sunday, according to Yahoo News and ABC News. By 9 p.m. Saturday, more than 800 Sunday flights had already been canceled, nearly all by American (293) and JetBlue (241), according to FlightAware figures cited by Yahoo News. The ground stop also scrambled weekend sports travel, including college football kickoffs. For more local coverage, see our Boston news hub and politics and government coverage.
Sources
- Yahoo News: FAA ground stop latest updates: Saturday cancellations top 6,000; Duffy blames L3Harris
- ABC News: FAA ground stop live updates: ‘Zero evidence of anything nefarious,’ FAA head says
- CBS Boston: National ground stop leaves travelers stranded at Boston Logan
- NBC Boston: How the rare national ground stop has affected flights at Boston’s Logan airport
Additional sources
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