The Federal Aviation Administration has lifted a nationwide ground stop on all flights Friday evening following an hourslong halt on air travel that left millions of airline passengers stranded.
The ground stop was lifted shortly after 8 p.m. EST, just before Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin stepped out to brief reporters inside the White House press briefing room. The FAA updated its website shortly before Duffy and Mullin spoke.
“At 8:15 tonight Eastern time, we opened up the airspace. Now, does that mean every flight is going to fly right now? It’s going to be slow, right?” Duffy, who apologized for his casual appearance after traveling himself, told reporters.
Mullin added that the FAA “was going in and putting patches into the system” when the telecommunications system were disrupted between air traffic controllers who manage flights at high altitude and pilots.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, left, and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, right, during a news conference in the James Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, left, and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, right, during a news conference in the James Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
“They were putting new equipment and new technology, and that new equipment, new technology just wasn’t —it was overwhelming the older system,” Mullin said.
The FAA halted all flight departures nationwide Friday afternoon due to a “rolling frequency outage” affecting facilities that monitor planes in the air. Mullin told reporters during a press briefing earlier in the day that a telecommunications issue was to blame for the disruption, which prompted air traffic controllers to lose contact with aircraft in certain regions of the country.
As of 7 p.m. local time, more than 2,700 flights were canceled and 11,000 flights had been delayed.
The FAA’s Telecommunications Infrastructure is a nationwide, secure network that connects all air traffic control facilities, airports, and FAA systems across U.S. airspace. When an FTI line goes down, it means the circuit has failed, potentially leading to the loss of communications between air traffic control facilities and the failure of certain operational equipment.
FAA IMPOSES NATIONWIDE GROUND STOP ON ALL FLIGHTS
Duffy said the failure was reason for Congress to put forward an additional $50 billion to overhaul the air traffic control system. The request was significantly higher than the $30 billion that Duffy had asked lawmakers for earlier this fall.
Congress passed $12.5 billion to begin overhauling the air traffic control system in July 2025. The FAA has begun to replace infrastructure, including radar, software, hardware, and telecommunications, through more than 10,000 projects nationwide.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
