After a nationwide flight stop, take-offs at US airports are allowed again

After around four hours, the US aviation authority FAA lifted the nationwide ban on take-offs at airports. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced this on its website. Thousands of flights had previously been canceled, which is why long queues formed at many airports.

How quickly the flights can start again depends, among other things, on whether crews are available, said Transportation Minister Sean Duffy in the White House. It will take some time to get flight movements going again. Hopefully there will be more flights again on Saturday.

Duffy said there was “instability” in the radio and radar systems in the afternoon (US time). Routers were overloaded with data and were therefore shut down. It was old technology that failed, not the new technology that was installed during his time in office, the minister said. The administration of Republican President Donald Trump often attributes problems in US aviation to inaction by the Cabinet of his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden.

It was only the second nationwide stop of air traffic in the USA since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The FAA last took this radical measure in January 2023. At that time, the trigger was a failure in the system through which messages are transmitted to pilots. In this case, the flight stop was lifted after a few hours.

The specific cause of the current problems initially remained unclear. Machines that were still in the air at the time of the stop were gradually able to land. Even after the problems have been overcome, there will likely be a significant impact on further air traffic, as a number of aircraft are now missing where they would have been needed for further flights as planned.

With takeoffs suspended, tens of thousands of passengers were suddenly stranded at airports and initially had no clarity about how quickly things could continue. Shortly after the flight stop was announced on Friday, American Arlines announced that connections until the end of the day would definitely be affected.