Airlines work to recover after thousands of flights cancelled in US

Thousands of flights have been cancelled in the wake of the incident on Friday 13 (AP)

More than 2,000 flights have been cancelled on Saturday as airlines across the US worked to recover from the longest nationwide ground stop in 25 years, stranding passengers and forcing sports teams to scramble for alternative transport.

Trump administration officials said new technology being added to America’s air traffic control system overloaded antiquated equipment and caused “intermittent” communications and radar gaps, leading to the flight shutdown of more than four hours.

A limited number of domestic flights departed after the stop was lifted around 8.15pm ET (1.15am GMT). But the effects could be felt for days, with officials saying the system is likely to be operating normally in time to handle the travel rush for the US Thanksgiving holiday.

The nationwide stop was the first since January 2023, when another key Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) computer system that sends notices to pilots malfunctioned, and the second since the September 11 attacks in 2001.

At airports across the US, passengers stared at screens showing delays or rushed to find buses or trains to their destinations. Some passed the time by breaking out in song.

Sports teams scheduled to play this weekend adjusted game start times, searched for hotel rooms, rescheduled flights and chartered buses.

US secretary of transportation Sean Duffy encouraged NCAA football teams to reach out to the FAA so the agency can prioritise flights for Saturday games.

More than 2,500 flights were cancelled in the US on Saturday and hundreds more were delayed, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks flight disruptions.

US secretary of homeland security Markwayne Mullin told reporters at the White House that no-one was in any danger as more than 3,000 flights were safely landed on Friday.

Mr Duffy blamed US congress for failing to approve more funding for new technology, while downplaying the fact that trying to implement new fixes overtaxed the system. He suggested more disruptions might occur.

“We didn’t think we would have this kind of outage. We did,” he said. “We were able to review what went wrong, and then reboot the system and go. But, you will have more of these.”

Mr Duffy said the problems were not linked to the FAA’s new AI-powered system the agency is rolling out to help predict problems in the sky because that is not connected to Friday’s failure.

“This is all the old legacy equipment. All of the new equipment that’s been deployed did not go down,” Mr Duffy said.

The FAA has already replaced thousands of old copper wires with fibre optic lines and upgraded hundreds of radio systems as part of the overhaul that began last year after Congress approved 12.5 billion dollars of funding.

Mr Duffy and the White House are pushing for 30 billion dollars more to complete the work.