Nationwide ground stop lifted, but delays will linger

A nationwide ground stop that lasted for hours on Friday has finally been lifted.

The Details

The ground stop stemmed from communication issues impacting air route traffic control centers due to an aging system.

A national emergency has been declared in order to start updating the country's air traffic control systems.

A rare nationwide ground stop that lasted for over four hours has finally been lifted, federal officials said during a news conference on Friday.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy speaks as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin listens on at the White House on Nov. 13, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Nationwide ground stop issued

At about 3:36 p.m. on Friday, communications among air traffic control experienced "instability," Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy said during a Friday evening news conference.

"We didn't lose all telecom. We didn't lose all radar. But that instability, because of an abundance of caution and making sure we keep the American flier safe, we did the ground stop," Duffy said.

"So we have TDM, telecom. So this is analog telecom. Our switches, are routers actually got overloaded with data and they went down and, I shouldn't say they went down. They started to give us inconsistency in the data, from those, from those routers. And because of that, we shut the system down," Duffy added. "It's the old hardware, that went down."

The ground stop was officially lifted at 8:19 p.m. ET.

A nationwide ground stop that lasted for over four hours on Friday as finally been lifted. (FAA)

Why you should care

Regarding Thanksgiving travel, which is one of the busiest travel times of the year in the U.S., Duffy predicts airports will be "back up and operational" in time for the holidays.

"I believe that it's going to take us some time to get back to capacity and then get people who were disrupted over the course of the last eight hours, to get them back to their destination. So we're going to have some makeup to do. I would imagine a lot of, my kids are flying next Friday back from college, I imagine that's what a lot of kids are flying and everyone starts their Thanksgiving travel, which, by the way, is a very busy time for travelers. I think we're going to be back up and operational as we come in to the heat of travel during Thanksgiving," Duffy said.

Dig deeper

In an earlier post on X, the FAA stated there was a "temporary telecommunications outage" and out of an abundance of caution, all flights have been halted.

An initial advisory posted on Friday stated

"Due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety. Attention all aircraft operators, by order of the Federal Aviation Command Center, all airports are ground stopped. All departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice. Inbound international flights will be managed on a case-by-case basis."

Not ruling out cyberattack

Federal officials on Friday said the nationwide ground stop is being viewed as a national emergency and while they have no indicators that it was the result of a cyberattack and just the result of an aging system, they aren't ruling anything out.

"There is nothing that indicates it yet. Now, when we start looking at cyber threats, cyberattacks, typically some people is going to raise their hand up and say, hey, we did that. There's no chatter, we haven't seen any footprints, as you would say, or identifications of people that got into the system. It appears that this was mechanically driven. However, we're still looking, so we're not going to roll that out," DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin said.

Sec. Markwayne Mullin gives update on FAA ground stop Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin addresses the media after the FAA orders a nationwide ground stop at airports.

Nationwide ground stop: How new DOT rule could affect compensation for flight delays Europe suspends all US-bound flights While some international flights were given the go-ahead to depart from the U.S., Europe has suspended all U.S.-bound flights.

Not ‘another 9/11’

What they're saying

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullins assured reporters Friday afternoon that the ground stop issuance was not because Americans' safety were at risk.

"We have a ground stoppage, we still got to get the flights out. Right. And so we're going to be dealing with those case by case. I think he said specific. It's a telecommunication outage. I'm not going to get ahead of FAA. That's their lane to talk about. We were wanting to assure all the American people this isn't a safety to the American people or another 9/11 I think that's what a lot of people are trying to make the comparison to, and that's not the case," he said Mullin said they are able to communicate "at certain levels. But it’s overwhelmed some of the systems we have."

Mullin said flights are continuing to land during the stoppage and that, for now, officials are working to "make sure" that "we get the flights down and then we get a normal operations back up."

Amtrak website and app experience error messages

As customers were scrambling to find ways to get home, Amtrak's website and app had become inundated with stranded travelers trying to get tickets.

Local perspective

Airlines around the country received advisories regarding the nationwide ground stop and were issuing waivers to travelers.

• Jet Blue
• American
• "

The FAA’s nationwide ground stop remains in place, though some flights from certain airports are beginning to receive clearance to depart. Most departures remain paused, and we expect continued disruption to our schedule, including unavoidable cancellations. Teams across American are working to safely get additional flights moving and customers on their way as conditions allow. To provide customers with additional flexibility, we have issued a travel alert at aa.com/travelalerts that allows customers to change their travel plans free of charge. We thank our customers for their patience and our team members for the extra care they are taking during a challenging situation."

"The FAA has issued a nationwide ground stop.

New domestic flights will not depart while the FAA ground stop remains in place. International departures are being managed on a case-by-case basis by the FAA. United flights that are already airborne will continue, but diversions are occurring due to the number of airplanes on the ground at our hubs. Cancellations are being implemented due to congestion in the nation’s air traffic system. We have issued a travel waiver so customers can change their travel plans. Customers can check the latest status of their flights or rebook at united.com or the United app And throughout the evening we will continue to update our.com with statements you can use as well."

• Delta
• US nationwide ground stop history
• The backstory:

This is the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023, when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned.

Before that, the last time had been after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Delayed flights line up in Terminal B during a nationwide ground stop at Orlando International Airport on November 13, 2026 in Orlando City. Nearly 7,000 flights have been delayed or cancelled. (Photo by Finn Gomez/Getty Images)

What is a ground stop?

Unlike a ground delay, a ground stop is usually a temporary advisory but tends to be more serious because of the ripple effects it can have on flights.

Ground stops completely halt planes from taking off.

The most common reasons for a ground stop according to the FAA are:

To control air traffic volume to airports when the projected traffic demand is expected to exceed the airport's acceptance rate for a short period of time.

To temporarily stop traffic to allow time for the implementation of a longer-term solution, such as a Ground Delay Program.