FAA Ends National Ground Stop After Air Traffic Control Data Overload

A nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports temporarily halted flights across the country on Thursday, including several departures from Hawai’i.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered the ground stop earlier in the day, citing extraordinary circumstances and safety reasons. While the restriction eventually ended, the disruption forced travelers to monitor flight statuses and prompted airlines to implement flexible booking policies.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced that the FAA reopened national airspace at approximately 3:15 p.m. HST. The sudden halt in air traffic followed a technical failure within the nation’s aging aviation infrastructure.

The @FAAnews issued a nationwide ground stop for all U. S. airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers. FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them.

— Post by @SecDuffy on X

“We use old switches, old routers,” Duffy said. “It went down everywhere, it got overloaded.”

The disruption was not the result of a security breach, according to federal officials. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin stated there is “zero evidence” that the incident was caused by an artificial intelligence agent or a cyberattack. Mullin added that no one was in danger at any point during the outage.

Flights can resume after data overload on systems forced nationwide ground stop, FAA says — KSAT 12

Duffy explained that the FAA’s air traffic control system became “overloaded with data,” which caused the system to produce inconsistent results. This instability led officials to order the ground stop as a precautionary measure to ensure passenger safety.

According to Duffy, the communication issue impacted all Air Route Traffic Control Centers. He said that similar incidents are likely to recur unless Congress approves significant funding for infrastructure upgrades. Such a project, Duffy estimated, would cost $50 billion.

Retired air traffic controller speaks about national ground stop — 9NEWS

This event is the first nationwide grounding of U.S. flights since January 2023. During that previous incident, an outage involving an air traffic control notification system caused the FAA to halt all departures for roughly 90 minutes.

The grounding affected various flight paths in the islands, though the impact was not uniform across all routes. Hawaiian Airlines spokesperson Alex Da Silva told Aloha State Daily that the ground stop impacted “certain” flights for both Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines.

Reducing information overload of air traffic controllers l

Despite the national stop, some regional operations remained functional. Da Silva said that systems were not impacted for international flights at Honolulu or for interisland travel. The airline continued to operate Neighbor Island flights and some routes between Hawai’i and the West Coast.

The Hawai’i Department of Transportation (HDOT) advised passengers scheduled to depart from state airports to contact their carriers for specific directions. HDOT also said that international flights would be managed on a case-by-case basis.

FAA's national ground stop impacts Bay Area travel with several delays, cancellation — ABC7 News Bay Area

To assist those caught in the disruption, Hawaiian Airlines began offering a flexible travel policy. This allows passengers impacted by the ground stop to change or cancel their trips without paying a fee.

The FAA continues to investigate the specific communication issue that triggered the data overload.