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Airliners were slowly resuming departures on Wednesday, January 11, after the FAA rushed to fix a system outage overnight that cancelled or delayed over 32,000 flights
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US President Joe Biden has been informed, the White House said, and he ordered an investigation although there’s no evidence it was a cyberattack
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FAA says departures are resuming Wednesday morning at Newark and Atlanta airports “due to air traffic congestion in those areas”
Flights in the United States gradually resumed departures on Wednesday morning, January 11 (10pm in Manila) after the Federal Aviation Administration scrambled to fix a system outage overnight that affected thousands of flights.
US President Joe Biden has been briefed on the FAA system outage, and the White House said there is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President has asked for an investigation.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN there is no evidence yet that Wednesday’s air travel system glitch resulted from a cyberattack, but added he also wouldn’t rule it out.
Reuters reported that the FAA had said earlier it had ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures after its pilot alerting Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system went out. The system alerts pilots to hazards and changes to airport facilities and procedures that had stopped processing updated information.
In all, 32,578 flights were delayed within, into or out of the US as of 8:07am ET (1255 GMT), flight tracking website FlightAware showed. Another 409 within, into or out of the country were also canceled.
On January 1 in the Philippines, a similar system glitch also cancelled or delayed hundreds of outbound and inbound flights to airports in Manila and several other cities.
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The FAA said departures were resuming at Newark and Atlanta airports “due to air traffic congestion in those areas. We expect departures to resume at other airports at 9am ET,” the report said. Flights already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations.
“The FAA is still working to fully restore the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system following an outage. While some functions are beginning to come back on line, National Airspace System operations remain limited,” the FAA said on Twitter.
United Airlines said it had temporarily delayed all domestic flights and would issue an update when it learned more from the FAA. Germany’s Lufthansa and Air France both said they were continuing to operate flights to and from the US.
A total of 21,464 flights are scheduled to depart US airports on Wednesday with a carrying capacity of nearly 2.9 million passengers, Reuters said, citing data from Cirium.
