Air travel across US thrown into chaos after FAA computer outage

MATT REED WITH THE IMPACTS FOR TRAVELERS. MATT? MATT: SOME OF THOSE TRAVELERS MISSING THEIR FLIGHTS WHILE THE GROUND STOP WAS IN PLACE AND THE CONSEQUENCES WILL HAVE EFFECTS THROUGHOUT THE DAY. MORE THAN 6,000 FLIGHTS DELAYED, WITH THE NUMBER CONTINUING TO CLIMB, AFTER A FAA SYSTEM OUTAGE EARLY THIS MORNING CAUSED GROUND STOPS AT AIRPORTS ACROSS THE COUNTRY. >> I HAVE NO IDEA WHETHER I’M LEAVING OR NOT. >> THEY RECOGNIZE IT’S NOT AN AIRLINE PROBLEM. SO, THERE’S NO ONE TO YELL AT. >> WE’RE FLYING SOUTHWEST IRONICALLY. SO, THEY TOLD US THIS WAS NOT SOUTHWEST, YOU KNOW, THIS IS A NATIONAL PROBLEM. MATT: KORTNEY NEDEAU AND HER WIFE DROVE DOWN FROM MAINE AT 3:00 THIS MORNING TO CATCH A FLIGHT OUT OF LOGAN AIRPORT TO CHICAGO. ULTIMATELY HEADING TO SALT LAKE CITY. BUT KORTNEY SAYS THEIR 5:30 FLIGHT WAS PUSHED BACK SEVERAL TIMES AND SEVERAL HOURS BEFORE ULTIMATELY BEING CANCELLED. >> THEY SAID THERE’S NO POINT IN TRYING TO CHANGE YOUR LAYOVERS AT THIS POINT BECAUSE EVEN LAYOVERS ARE DELAYED. MATT: IN A SERIES OF TWEETS, THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION BLAMED THE GROUND STOP ON A PROBLEM WITH THEIR NOTICE TO AIR MISSIONS SYSTEM, WHICH ALERTS PILOTS ABOUT POTENTIAL HAZARDS ALONG A FLIGHT. JUST BEFORE 9:00 A.M. THE FAA ANNOUNCED THAT THE GROUND STOP HAD BEEN LIFTED, BUT THE DOMINO EFFECT OF DELAYS AND CANCELATIONS HAD ALREADY BEGUN, SWEEPING ACROSS AIRPORTS NATIONWIDE. >> THIS SORT OF THING HAPPENS BUT I’VE NEVER EXPERIENCED AN FAA PROBLEM. THERE’S BEEN WEATHER -- WEATHER DELAYS ALL THE TIME -- A PROBLEM WITH THE AIRLINE, A PROBLEM WITH THE PLANE ITSELF, BUT NEVER SEEN AN ENTIRE SYSTEM OUTAGE. MATT: FLIGHTAWARE.COM SHOWS 52 DELAYS AND 12 CANCELLATIONS AT LOGAN AIRPORT. AS ALWAYS, IT IS CRITICAL TO CHECK YO

The world's largest aircraft fleet was grounded for hours by a cascading outage in a government system that delayed or canceled thousands of flights across the U.S. on Wednesday.The White House initially said that there was no evidence of a cyberattack behind the outage that ruined travel plans for millions of passengers. President Joe Biden said Wednesday morning that he's directed the Department of Transportation to investigate.Whatever the cause, the outage revealed how dependent the world's largest economy is on air travel, and how dependent air travel is on an antiquated computer system called the Notice to Air Missions, or NOTAM.Before commencing a flight, pilots are required to consult NOTAMs, which list potential adverse impacts on flights, from runway construction to the potential for icing. The system used to be telephone-based, with pilots calling dedicated flight service stations for the information, but has moved online.The NOTAM system broke down late Tuesday, leading to more than 1,000 flight cancellations and 7,000 delayed flights by midday Wednesday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.The chaos is expected to grow as backups compound. More than 21,000 flights were scheduled to take off in the U.S. today, mostly domestic trips, and about 1,840 international flights expected to fly to the U.S., according to aviation data firm Cirium.Airports in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta were seeing between 30% and 40% of flights delayed."We are going to see the ripple effects from that, this morning's delays through the system during the day," said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in an interview on CNN. "Now we have to understand how this could have happened in the first place. Why the usual redundancies that would stop it from being that disruptive did not stop it from being disruptive this time."Video above: Biden comments on FAA outageLongtime aviation insiders could not recall an outage of such magnitude caused by a technology breakdown. Some compared it to the nationwide shutdown of airspace after the terror attacks of September 2001."Periodically there have been local issues here or there, but this is pretty significant historically," said Tim Campbell, a former senior vice president of air operations at American Airlines and now a consultant in Minneapolis.Campbell said there has long been concern about the Federal Aviation Administration's technology, and not just the NOTAM system."So much of their systems are old mainframe systems that are generally reliable but they are out of date," he said.John Cox, a former airline pilot and aviation safety expert, said there has been talk in the aviation industry for years about trying to modernize the NOTAM system, but he did not know the age of the servers that the FAA uses.He couldn't say whether a cyberattack was possible."I've been flying 53 years. I've never heard the system go down like this," Cox said. "So something unusual happened."According to FAA advisories, the NOTAM system failed at 8:28 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday preventing new or amended notices from being distributed to pilots. The FAA resorted to a telephone hotline to keep departures flying overnight, but as daytime traffic picked up it overwhelmed the telephone backup system.The FAA ordered all departing flights grounded early Wednesday morning, affecting all passenger and shipping flights.Some medical flights could get clearance and the outage did not impact any military operations or mobility.Flights for the U.S. military's Air Mobility Command, were not affected.Biden said Wednesday morning that he was briefed by Buttigieg."I just spoke to Buttigieg. They don't know what the cause is. But I was on the phone with him about 10 minutes," Biden said. "I told him to report directly to me when they find out.Buttigieg said on CNN that the order to ground all departing flights was done out of an abundance of caution, but said mass disruptions to U.S. air travel are not acceptable."We need to design a system that does not have this kind of vulnerability," Buttigieg said.Video above: Traveler describes experience following FAA outageJulia Macpherson was on a United Airlines flight from Sydney to Los Angeles on Wednesday when she learned of possible delays."As I was up in the air I got news from my friend who was also traveling overseas that there was a power outage," said Macpherson, who was returning to Florida from Hobart, Tasmania. Once she lands in Los Angeles, she still has a connection in Denver on her flight to Jacksonville, Florida.She said there have been no announcements on the flight about the FAA issue.Macpherson said she had already experienced a delay in her travels because her original flight from Melbourne to San Francisco was canceled and she rebooked a flight from Sydney to Los Angeles.Similar stories came out of Chicago, Washington, Atlanta and other major U.S. airports.European flights into the U.S. appeared to be largely unaffected. Carriers from Ireland's Aer Lingus to Germany's Lufthansa said there was no impact on their schedules.It was the latest headache for travelers in the U.S. who faced flight cancellations over the holidays amid winter storms and a breakdown with staffing technology at Southwest Airlines. They also ran into long lines, lost baggage, and cancellations and delays over the summer as travel demand roared back from the COVID-19 pandemic and ran into staffing cutbacks at airports and airlines in the U.S. and Europe._______AP writers Zeke Miller and Tara Copp contributed to this report from Washington, D.C. AP Business Writer Kelvin Chan contributed from London. AP reporter Freida Frisaro contributed from Miami. AP Airlines Writer David Koenig contributed from Dallas.

The world's largest aircraft fleet was grounded for hours by a cascading outage in a government system that delayed or canceled thousands of flights across the U.S. on Wednesday.

The White House initially said that there was no evidence of a cyberattack behind the outage that ruined travel plans for millions of passengers. President Joe Biden said Wednesday morning that he's directed the Department of Transportation to investigate.

Whatever the cause, the outage revealed how dependent the world's largest economy is on air travel, and how dependent air travel is on an antiquated computer system called the Notice to Air Missions, or NOTAM.

Before commencing a flight, pilots are required to consult NOTAMs, which list potential adverse impacts on flights, from runway construction to the potential for icing. The system used to be telephone-based, with pilots calling dedicated flight service stations for the information, but has moved online.

The NOTAM system broke down late Tuesday, leading to more than 1,000 flight cancellations and 7,000 delayed flights by midday Wednesday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.

The chaos is expected to grow as backups compound. More than 21,000 flights were scheduled to take off in the U.S. today, mostly domestic trips, and about 1,840 international flights expected to fly to the U.S., according to aviation data firm Cirium.

Airports in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta were seeing between 30% and 40% of flights delayed.

"We are going to see the ripple effects from that, this morning's delays through the system during the day," said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in an interview on CNN. "Now we have to understand how this could have happened in the first place. Why the usual redundancies that would stop it from being that disruptive did not stop it from being disruptive this time."

Video above: Biden comments on FAA outage

Longtime aviation insiders could not recall an outage of such magnitude caused by a technology breakdown. Some compared it to the nationwide shutdown of airspace after the terror attacks of September 2001.

"Periodically there have been local issues here or there, but this is pretty significant historically," said Tim Campbell, a former senior vice president of air operations at American Airlines and now a consultant in Minneapolis.

Campbell said there has long been concern about the Federal Aviation Administration's technology, and not just the NOTAM system.

"So much of their systems are old mainframe systems that are generally reliable but they are out of date," he said.

John Cox, a former airline pilot and aviation safety expert, said there has been talk in the aviation industry for years about trying to modernize the NOTAM system, but he did not know the age of the servers that the FAA uses.

He couldn't say whether a cyberattack was possible.

"I've been flying 53 years. I've never heard the system go down like this," Cox said. "So something unusual happened."

According to FAA advisories, the NOTAM system failed at 8:28 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday preventing new or amended notices from being distributed to pilots. The FAA resorted to a telephone hotline to keep departures flying overnight, but as daytime traffic picked up it overwhelmed the telephone backup system.

Bizarre sight to land at ATL and not see any planes on the runway or waiting to take off.
— Jeremy Nelson (@jnelsonWJCL)

The FAA ordered all departing flights grounded early Wednesday morning, affecting all passenger and shipping flights.

Some medical flights could get clearance and the outage did not impact any military operations or mobility.

Flights for the U.S. military's Air Mobility Command, were not affected.

Biden said Wednesday morning that he was briefed by Buttigieg.

"I just spoke to Buttigieg. They don't know what the cause is. But I was on the phone with him about 10 minutes," Biden said. "I told him to report directly to me when they find out.

Buttigieg said on CNN that the order to ground all departing flights was done out of an abundance of caution, but said mass disruptions to U.S. air travel are not acceptable.

"We need to design a system that does not have this kind of vulnerability," Buttigieg said.

Video above: Traveler describes experience following FAA outage

Julia Macpherson was on a United Airlines flight from Sydney to Los Angeles on Wednesday when she learned of possible delays.

"As I was up in the air I got news from my friend who was also traveling overseas that there was a power outage," said Macpherson, who was returning to Florida from Hobart, Tasmania. Once she lands in Los Angeles, she still has a connection in Denver on her flight to Jacksonville, Florida.

She said there have been no announcements on the flight about the FAA issue.

Macpherson said she had already experienced a delay in her travels because her original flight from Melbourne to San Francisco was canceled and she rebooked a flight from Sydney to Los Angeles.

Similar stories came out of Chicago, Washington, Atlanta and other major U.S. airports.

European flights into the U.S. appeared to be largely unaffected. Carriers from Ireland's Aer Lingus to Germany's Lufthansa said there was no impact on their schedules.

It was the latest headache for travelers in the U.S. who faced flight cancellations over the holidays amid winter storms and a breakdown with staffing technology at Southwest Airlines. They also ran into long lines, lost baggage, and cancellations and delays over the summer as travel demand roared back from the COVID-19 pandemic and ran into staffing cutbacks at airports and airlines in the U.S. and Europe.

_______

AP writers Zeke Miller and Tara Copp contributed to this report from Washington, D.C. AP Business Writer Kelvin Chan contributed from London. AP reporter Freida Frisaro contributed from Miami. AP Airlines Writer David Koenig contributed from Dallas.

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