FAA lifts rare nationwide ground stop

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The FAA on Friday lifted a rare nationwide ground stop that impacted more than 14,500 flights after a major outage affecting the US’ air communications system.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed “an incredibly old air traffic control system,” and said the government didn’t suspect any nefarious causes, such as a terrorist or cyber attack. He said the issues were connected to old equipment that was overloaded, and that flights should start taking off again over the next day. 
“Hopefully tomorrow, we are going to start to see far better movement,” he said, while trying to reassure travelers that the US remains “the safest system in the world.”
The stoppage, which lasted more than four hours, caused widespread disruption and prompted shares in airlines to drop. American Airlines shares dropped more than 2% in after-hours trading, while United shares fell 1.6%. Those airlines are now navigating thousands of rebookings and frustrated passengers.
This is only the third time the agency has ever issued such an order. The most recent was in January 2023; before that, air traffic was halted nationwide on Sept. 11, 2001.
Duffy used a large portion of a press conference on Friday evening to blame the Republican-controlled Congress for withholding funds for air-traffic control repairs. He urged lawmakers to approve $50 billion to upgrade infrastructure through an emergency funding bill. “I’ve asked, the president’s asked for $30 billion. I want $50 billion,” Duffy said.

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