US air traffic expected to return to normal by Sunday, FAA chief says

In brief

• The FAA expects US air traffic to return to normal by Sunday evening, its administrator said.
• Around 12,000 flights were cancelled on Friday, and more than 4,000 were cancelled on Saturday with about 3,000 delayed.
• Friday's nationwide ground stop lasted about five hours and was the longest US halt since September 11, 2001.

Nationwide halt and cancellations

The FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop on Friday that kept almost all departing flights on the ground for roughly five hours, following a widespread communications outage (Letový provoz v USA se vrátí k normálu do neděle, míní šéf FAA – ČT24). The agency said about 12,000 flights were cancelled on Friday (Pre výpadok leteckej dopravy bude v USA zrušených vyše 16-tisíc letov – HNonline.sk). Saturday's disruption was larger: major carriers cancelled more than 4,000 flights in the country and delayed around 3,000 more. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told a news conference that some 41,000 flights had been scheduled for Saturday and that between 4,000 and 5,000 of them were likely to be scrapped.

Recovery timeline

Bedford said normal service should return by Sunday evening and that airlines would keep facing delays and cancellations through Saturday as they moved planes and crews back into position. He said the worst of the disruption was behind the system.

Government response

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X that operations were slowly returning to normal, with aircraft leaving gates, taxiing and taking off, and that flying was safe. He warned travelers that delays and cancellations would continue while carriers reschedule flights. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Friday rejected speculation that a coordinated cyberattack had caused the outage.

Scale of the disruption

The stoppage is the longest nationwide halt to US air traffic since the attacks of September 11, 2001. Thousands of passengers were stranded during the weekend, and airlines were still working through backlogs when the FAA issued its recovery forecast.

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