US FAA system outage explained; What caused hundreds of flights to be grounded?

The US airline industry is now gradually beginning to resume its services after a glitch in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system led to hundreds of flights being grounded on Wednesday. Earlier, FAA announced that all domestic flight departures were being briefly halted across the country. However, the ground stop was then lifted at 9 am ET after the computer glitch was fixed.

Why were flight operations impacted?

Though FAA is still investigating the initial reason, it had said in a statement that the administration was halting operations due to Notice to Air Missions or NOTAM system outage. NOTAM is a notice containing information crucial to personnel concerned with flight operations. The NOTAM system outage implies that the computers were unable to send out information to those involved in different flights across the nations. Hence, the glitch wreaked havoc on the US airline industry.


NOTAM is different from air traffic control system that helps in keeping planes at safe distance from each other while on air. There is no evidence if the system outage was due to a cyberattack, said US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in an interview, while also adding that he wouldn’t rule out the possibility.

Are all operations resumed now?

As of Wednesday noon (local time), US FAA’s website was still showing delays as well as ground stops at some of the airports. Significant US carriers such as United Airlines, Delta and American Airlines reportedly said that they were grounding their respective flights in response to the situation. While United and Delta issued travel waivers, American Airlines allowed customers to rebook flights without any extra fees.

According to figures at 1:05 pm ET, flight tracking website FlightAware showed over 7,600 flights to, from and within the United States were delayed. Moreover, around 1,200 flights have been cancelled so far.

FAQs:

1. What is NOTAM?
   NOTAM or Notice to Air Missions is a notice containing information crucial to personnel concerned with flight operations.
2. What is FAA?
   US Federal Aviation Administration or FAA is the largest transportation agency of the US government.