FAA Lifts Nationwide Ground Stop, but Flight Delays and Cancellations Expected to Persist

At 8:15 p.m. Eastern on Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration reopened U.S. airspace and let departures resume, ending a nationwide ground stop that had begun in the middle of the afternoon. The relief came with a warning attached. Lifting the order, officials said, did not mean planes would start leaving on schedule.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy laid out the sequence. At 3:36 p.m. Eastern, instability showed up in radar and communications systems at air traffic control centers and Terminal Radar Approach Control, or TRACON, facilities across the country. Radar data became inconsistent, and so did communication between controllers and aircraft. Following established safety procedures, the FAA ordered departures halted. Duffy said more than 3,500 aircraft were airborne when the order came. Most landed safely, and fewer than 400 were still in the air at the time of his latest update. He said the FAA had not lost all radar or TRACON capability, but the instability was enough to justify stopping departures as a precaution. Medical evacuation flights, cargo carrying critical medicines and law enforcement movements were allowed to continue.

Duffy blamed the failure on aging infrastructure, calling the system "incredibly old" and saying outdated hardware had gone down. He pointed to earlier problems in New York and Newark and said more would follow unless the country builds a new system, though he acknowledged he could not predict every possible failure. On recovery, he was candid: "It's going to be slow." The FAA would try to move as many flights as it could that night if crews were available, he said, and otherwise would start again in the morning with airline partners. Passengers at airports were told to check directly with their airlines.

The failure sharpened a funding fight already underway. Earlier Friday, Duffy and the White House had sought $30.1 billion for aging airports and air traffic control. That package included $10.1 billion for air traffic control modernization, covering a common automation platform, controller workstations and cloud computing, plus $2 billion for FAA control towers and $18 billion for airport projects such as replacing or modernizing terminals. Late in the day, Reuters reported, the administration raised its request to $50 billion. "This is an emergency," Duffy said.

The request follows money Congress has already provided: $12.5 billion in July 2025 for upgrades and controller recruitment, and $1.9 billion to replace outdated en route centers. The Senate Commerce Committee said Friday's incident underscored the need to prioritize those en route centers, which manage traffic between airports. The FAA says it has replaced 68% of its legacy copper telecommunications network with high-speed fiber. Dependence on old technology has long been a concern: the agency uses decades-old computers and has sourced replacement parts through auction websites. Last week it said it would replace floppy disks used for weather and other critical information at more than 400 facilities by the end of 2028.

For travelers, the disruption was already concrete. Air Canada cancelled all flights to and from the U.S. for the rest of Friday evening and warned that routes between Canada, the Caribbean and South America crossing U.S. airspace could be affected. JetBlue cancelled the rest of its domestic flights Friday, excepting certain Europe-bound services from Boston Logan and New York's JFK, and said cancellations could continue into Saturday, according to the Associated Press. Cirium counted at least 827 diverted flights by Friday evening: 670 returned to their departure airports and 157 sent elsewhere.

About 11,000 flights carrying more than 1.5 million passengers had been scheduled to depart U.S. airports after 4 p.m. Eastern, AP reported. Cargo operations were affected, and several NBA, NHL and college teams were stranded while trying to travel for weekend games. The immediate question is how quickly airlines can get aircraft and crews back in place; the larger one is whether Congress answers the $50 billion request.