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New York (CNN) — The airline industry was slow to restore service after a Federal Aviation Administration system outage caused thousands of flight delays and cancellations across the United States on Wednesday.
The FAA briefly halted all U.S. domestic flight departures Wednesday morning and lifted the ground shutdown around 9 a.m. ET after restoring the system that provides pilots with pre-flight safety briefings.
But airlines continued to delay or cancel flights due to ongoing congestion.
As of late Wednesday afternoon, the FAA website was still showing delays at some airports.
All major US carriers, including United Airlines, Delta and American Airlines, said they were canceling flights in response to the situation. United and Delta issued travel cancellations in response to the outage. American Airlines said its customers could rebook their flights on Wednesday and Thursday without additional fees.
FlightAware, which tracks delays and cancellations, showed more than 9,500 flights to, from and within the United States were delayed as of 6 p.m. ET and more than 1,300 canceled flights.
Southwest, which canceled thousands of flights after Christmas following a system meltdown, was hit hard with more than 400 flights canceled. About 10% of Southwest flights Wednesday were canceled and about half delayed as of 6 p.m. ET.
Southwest operations continued until mid-morning, the airline said.
“Due to the FAA outage, we anticipate some schedule adjustments throughout the day,” Southwest said in a statement, encouraging passengers to check flight status online or through the airline’s app. Southwest also issued a waiver allowing passengers to change their flights.
American Airlines was also hit hard: Including feeder airlines that use regional jets, American said it had canceled nearly 400 flights by midday Wednesday.
The cause remains under investigation
Cause of outage under investigation
The affected system, Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM), sends alerts to pilots to notify them of conditions that could affect the safety of their flights. It’s separate from the air traffic control system that keeps planes at a safe distance from each other, but it’s another key tool for air traffic safety.
In a statement Wednesday night, the FAA acknowledged that a corrupted file caused the outage, which was confirmed by CNN reporting. See the article : Airlines are too ambitious to chase travel rebounds. Now they reduce it.
“Our preliminary work traced the outage to a corrupted database file. There is currently no evidence of a cyber attack,” the FAA said.
That echoed what Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN’s Kate Bolduan in an interview Wednesday.
“There is no direct evidence or indication of [a cyber attack], but we won’t rule that out either until we have a clear and better understanding of what happened,” Buttigieg said.
The 90-minute suspension of flights across the US on Wednesday morning was carried out out of “an abundance of caution”. Buttigieg said there were “irregularities” in safety messages sent to pilots overnight, reflecting a larger problem.
Buttigieg, who has been tough on the airlines for the past year over their staffing and technology problems, said the Transportation Department and the Federal Aviation Administration would “take responsibility” for their mistakes.
“No, this kind of disruption shouldn’t happen and my main interest now that we’ve gotten over the immediate morning disruption is to understand exactly how this was possible and exactly what steps need to be taken to ensure it doesn’t happen again, Buttigieg said.
Buttigieg said via Twitter Wednesday morning that he had ordered “an after-action process to determine the root causes and recommend next steps.”
Nav Canada also reported an outage in Canada’s NOTAM system on Wednesday. The nearly three-hour outage did not affect flight operations and its cause is under investigation, the air navigation services provider said.
“At this time, we do not believe the cause is related to the FAA outage that occurred earlier today,” Nav Canada said in a statement.
Another aviation meltdown
It’s the second time in less than a month that frequent flyer Erin Potrzebowski has had her Southwest flight canceled as part of the mass flight cancellations. On the same subject : Delta gives customers the opportunity to change flights before the trip on July 4th.
“I’ve never experienced anything like what happened today and what happened at Southwest a few weeks ago,” said Potrzebowski, who was waiting for a delayed flight to New Orleans at Chicago Midway International Airport on Wednesday.
“Weather-related issues are common, but I’ve never experienced mass cancellations affecting the entire country,” Potrzebowski said.
Calls to upgrade the aircraft system quickly came.
“Today’s catastrophic failure of the FAA system is a clear sign that America’s transportation network is in dire need of major upgrades,” said Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the American Airlines Association.
“Americans deserve an end-to-end travel experience that is seamless and safe. And our nation’s economy depends on a best-in-class air travel system.”
Investments in the agency are expected to be considered by Congress this year when the five-year FAA reauthorization law signed in 2018 expires.
International impacts
International flights bound for the United States continued to take off from Amsterdam and Paris on Wednesday despite the conditions. This may interest you : Alaska Airlines surprises employees with 90,000 miles to travel around the world. A spokesperson for Schiphol Airport told CNN that “a solution has been issued” and planes are still departing from Amsterdam.
Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport did not record any cancellations, but delays were expected, the airport’s press office said. Frankfurt Airport also told CNN that it was not affected.
A spokesman for London’s Heathrow Airport told CNN early Wednesday that they were “not aware of any canceled flights and that flights to the US have recently departed,” but passengers were reporting major delays.
Shabnam Amini told CNN that she and other travelers were stuck on American Airlines Flight 51 to Dallas at Heathrow for nearly three hours due to an FAA outage.
She said they were informed there would be delays, but they were put on the plane anyway.
Commercial airline pilots use NOTAMS for real-time information about flight hazards and restrictions. The FAA states that NOTAMS should not be relied upon as the sole source of information, so some flights may be able to meet safety requirements using other data.
Wednesday’s incident was the second aviation crisis. A major winter storm during the holiday season caused widespread disruption and helped trigger the Southwest Airlines meltdown that affected thousands of passengers.
While Southwest’s midweek cancellations are a problem for customers, they have not been nearly as bad as Dec. 21-29, when shortages forced the cancellation of about 16,000 flights, or nearly half of the schedule. available staff.
Barry Neild, Paul P. Murphy, Betsy Kline, Livvy Doherty, Chris Isidore, Sean Lyngaas, Betsy Klein, Marnie Hunter and Stephanie Halasz contributed to this story.
