The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted its nationwide ground stop late on Friday, November 13, 2026, after testing confirmed system stability following a communications equipment failure that caused overloaded routers to provide inconsistent data to air traffic control centers. The ground stop, initiated around 4 p.m. ET, lasted more than four hours and was the longest nationwide halt since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Flight disruptions persisted into Saturday morning, November 14, with FlightAware tracking more than 3,000 U.S. flight cancellations and close to 1,000 delays as of 5:45 a.m. ET. These figures added to approximately 9,000 cancellations and over
7,000 delays reported on Friday. Airlines faced a significant backlog as many planes had been diverted to alternate airports during the ground stop, complicating recovery efforts.
Airlines are deploying spare aircraft and crews to accelerate the restoration of normal schedules, particularly ahead of the Thanksgiving travel period, when data from aviation analytics firm Cirium shows about 3 million passengers typically fly on a Saturday in the United States. The widespread disruption affected flights at multiple U.S. airports nationwide.
The travel disruption also impacted sports team travel, including National Basketball Association (NBA), National Hockey League (NHL), and college football squads. College
teams chartering flights were offered priority travel by the FAA to minimize delays. The Southeastern Conference (SEC) announced some college games were postponed to Sunday, including the Ole Miss-Sooners football game. The SEC said it is working closely with member institutions to manage the situation and coordinate responses.
FAA officials stated: “Before clearing flights to resume, we thoroughly tested our systems to confirm they were stable and that operations remain reliable.” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy attributed the disruption to outdated air traffic control infrastructure and called on Congress to provide funding for system modernization. He also urged college football teams
to coordinate flight schedules with the FAA to ensure their games proceed as planned: “I would encourage those football teams to reach out to the FAA to schedule their flight times and make sure they have games going off tomorrow.” The Trump administration indicated the incident was not a cyberattack but linked it to aging equipment and a shortage of controllers.
