The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has advised regular air traffic operations are slowly resuming after Tuesday’s overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) warning system saw domestic flights grounded across the US.
The outage of the NOTAM safety system, which provides safety advice to pilots, upended travel plans for millions across the US on Wednesday.
More than 1,200 flight cancellations and 8,500 delays occurred with some planes stranded on the tarmac for hours.
Airports in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta saw 30 to 40 per cent of flights delayed.
All airlines were asked to stop domestic departures until 9am Eastern Time on Wednesday to allow FAA to validate the integrity of flight and safety data.
The FAA has lifted the ground stop while an investigation continues into the initial problem, according to its website.
The unprecedented breakdown showed the US dependence on the antiquated computer system that generates NOTAMs for pilots and crew.
It’s also the first time since 9/11 that the FAA has grounded all US flights.
Flights restart
Flights resumed at Newark Liberty (EWR) and Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson (ATL) airports due to air traffic congestion in those areas.
Departures will resume at other airports after the FAA lifted the ground stop however, the chaos was expected to linger.
More than 21,000 domestic flights were scheduled on Wednesday with around 1,840 international flights expected to fly to the US, according to aviation data firm Cirium.
It comes after airlines struggle with post-pandemic operations hampered by global labour shortages, aircraft capacity and border restrictions.
A polar vortex in the US also impacted travel in late December.
Via AP
