US ground stop delays flights from Incheon Airport

Flights from South Korea's Incheon International Airport to major US cities were delayed by about two hours Saturday following a nationwide ground stop in the United States caused by air traffic control communications problems.

According to Incheon International Airport Corp., flights bound for New York, Atlanta and Boston were experiencing delays of approximately two hours as of 10 a.m.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said airlines were delaying US-bound departures at the request of American authorities.

"Airlines are implementing delays following a request to suspend departures for US-bound flights due to problems with the US air traffic control system. We are closely monitoring the situation," a ministry official told a local news outlet.

The US Federal Aviation Administration ordered the nationwide ground stop Friday after a communications outage affected 22 regional air traffic control centers responsible for directing aircraft between airports.

US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin indicated there was no evidence of malicious activity behind the outage.

The nationwide ground stop was the first since January 2023, when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned, and only the second since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to news reports.