The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted a nationwide ground stop on the morning of November 14, 2026, which had halted departing U.S. flights for over four hours starting around 4 p.m. Eastern Time on November 13. The outage, the longest pause in flight departures since 9/11, was triggered by updates to telecommunications systems made by contractor L3Harris Technologies. Flight operations were stopped due to “instability” in data feeds critical for air traffic control centers, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said, emphasizing that no FAA facilities ceased operations. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy explained that switching a router from copper wire to fiberoptic
cable overwhelmed other system routers with more than 1,000 connection attempts every five seconds, disrupting airplane communications and radar feeds.
As of 9:40 a.m. ET on November 14, more than 3,700 U.S. flights had been canceled and nearly 2,000 were delayed nationwide, according to flight-tracking data. These continued disruptions followed approximately 9,000 cancellations and over 7,000 delays on November 13, some of which were also attributed to adverse weather. Approximately 3 million people were scheduled to fly on November 14. The ground stop forced many planes to divert to alternate airports, complicating the recovery of normal flight schedules during one
of the lightest Saturday flight days to allow spare aircraft and crews to operate.
Airlines including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines responded by offering financial incentives to crews. American Airlines gave extra pay to flight attendants to pick up trips, Delta offered double pay and guaranteed seats on repositioning flights to crews, and United Airlines provided additional pay for pilots and flight attendants covering flights through Sunday. Moreover, American Airlines and other carriers allowed customers to change tickets without fees or fare differences if their travel was affected by the outage.
The disruption extended to sports travel
logistics, delaying college football games managed by the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and prompting some game postponements to the following day. The SEC stated it was coordinating with member institutions on travel disruptions. The National Football League (NFL) reassigned officials to games within driving distance of their hometowns and deployed three backup referees for Sunday games impacted by the disrupted travel caused by the ground stop.
The outage highlighted vulnerabilities in the aging U.S. air traffic control infrastructure. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called for increased congressional funding to modernize the system amid concerns over outdated equipment and air traffic controller shortages.
The FAA confirmed the incident was unrelated to cyberattacks or artificial intelligence, with Bedford stating at a press conference there was “zero evidence” of nefarious causes or AI involvement. The agency is investigating if the root cause involved user error, installation mistakes by L3Harris, or faulty hardware.
