NORMAL AIR TRAFFIC OPERATIONS RESUMING GRADUALLY
The latest statement from the FAA at 08:50 EST said, “Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the United States following an overnight outage to the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system that provides safety information to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted. The agency continues to look into the cause of the initial problem.”
All flights across the US were grounded due to an issue with the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) computer system. At around 6:30 Eastern, there were 760 delays within, into or out of the United States, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. The FAA said in a tweet that it was working on restoring its Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) System.
The New York Times posted the following update at 08:45 EST
Here’s what to know:
- The F.A.A. expected departures to resume at 9 a.m. Eastern time at most airports. More than 3,700 flights within, into and out of the United States had been delayed on Wednesday, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking service.
- Departures resumed at airports in Newark and Atlanta “due to air traffic congestion in those areas,” the F.A.A. said in a statement.
- The delays were spread across the country and affected multiple carriers. United Airlines said in a statement that it had temporarily delayed all domestic flights and that it would issue an update when it learned more from the F.A.A. American Airlines said the situation “impacts all airlines” and that it was “working with the F.A.A. to minimize disruption to our operation and customers.”
- President Biden said he had spoken with Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, and asked him to report back when a cause for the failure was identified.
.NOTAMs used to be available through a hotline which was subsequently phased out with the internet. The alerts span from general information about construction, runway closures, general bird hazard warnings, or low-altitude construction obstacles to urgent flight restrictions or broken equipment.
‘The FAA said earlier it was working to restore its Notice to Air Missions System. “We are performing final validation checks and repopulating the system now. Operations across the National Airspace System are affected.
“We will provide frequent updates as we make progress.”
Federal officials said Tuesday they will require charter airlines, air-tour operators and plane manufacturers to develop detailed systems for identifying potential safety problems before accidents occur.
The Federal Aviation Administration said safety-management systems have made travel on large airlines safer since their adoption was required in 2018.
We will continue to update this story during the day.
First published at Travel Industry Today