U.S. aviation authorities "The worst has passed... Flight operations will be fully normalized on the 15th"

The U.S. aviation authorities predicted that air traffic would completely normalize on the 15th while the fallout from the complete suspension of aircraft operations caused by a failure of the air traffic control and communication system on the 14th (local time) continued today.

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Brian Bedford said at a press conference that day, “Of the 41,000 flights scheduled for today, we expect that about 4,000 to 5,000 will be canceled.”

He continued, “Therefore, delays and cancellations will occur today as well, but tomorrow (15th) it will be completely normalized.”

“Airlines believe they will be able to fully normalize their flight schedules by the close of business on the 15th,” Bedford said. “So while we believe the worst is behind us, there is still a significant amount of recovery work that needs to be addressed with airline stakeholders.”

Commissioner Bedford explained that the reason he issued a nationwide ground stop for 4 hours and 30 minutes the previous day was because it was randomly reported that a specific frequency signal received from up to 17 of the 22 route control centers across the United States was intermittently disconnected and reconnected.

He repeatedly emphasized that this incident was not caused by malicious acts such as terrorism, and artificial intelligence (AI) was not involved.

“I want to make it clear that this issue is due to an equipment defect,” Bedford said. “We are currently working to determine exactly what the defect is.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who also attended the press conference, said that the equipment defect that caused the total suspension of flights the day before began while FAA contractor L3 Harris was working to replace air traffic control network cables from existing copper to optical fiber.

"What we're trying to figure out is whether it's the company's incompetence or whether it's the faulty router," Duffy said. "We haven't figured out the cause of the fault yet."