PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Airports around the country on Wednesday were dealing with the ripple effects of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) temporarily grounding all domestic flights earlier that morning because of a widespread computer system outage.
At PHL early Wednesday morning, the big board of flight information was still frozen on the previous day. Regular air traffic operations gradually resumed after the nationwide ground stop, but there were still more than 200 delays and about 60 cancellations at Philadelphia International Airport through the day.
Heather Redfern with PHL said it got a little crowded Wednesday morning.
"Passengers were still able to get through the TSA checkpoint and wait in the airport. So you know, concessions were busy, the terminals were a little bit more crowded, because people were waiting a little bit longer for their flights," she said.
And she says lines were long,
"TSA was checking passengers through. I believe some of the ticketing counters, the airline ticketing counters, were a little bit longer for people who weren't checking in online and needed to drop off a bag, or if they needed to, you know, make other arrangements with the airline because they were backed up, because they weren't sure how long the ground stock was going to be and how that was going to impact their operations for the rest of the day," Redfern said.
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The affected system, known as Notice to Air Missions (NOTAMs), is responsible for sending out flight hazards and real-time restrictions to pilots, from runway construction to the potential for icing. Before commencing a flight, pilots are required to consult NOTAMs.
That system broke down late Tuesday and was not fixed until midmorning Wednesday, leading to more than 1,200 flight cancellations and more than 8,500 delays by early afternoon on the East Coast, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.
More than 21,000 flights were scheduled to take off Wednesday in the U.S., mostly domestic trips, and about 1,840 international flights expected to fly to the U.S., according to aviation data firm Cirium.
Shortly before 7:30 a.m., the FAA ordered airlines to pause domestic departures until 9 a.m. so it could “validate the integrity of flight and safety information.”
Shortly after 9 a.m., Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced, "FAA has determined that the safety system affected by the overnight outage is fully restored, and the nationwide ground stop will be lifted effective immediately. I have directed an after-action process to determine root causes and recommend next steps."
The White House said that there is no evidence of a cyberattack, but President Joe Biden directed the Department of Transportation to investigate the cause of the disruption.
This is just the latest headache for travelers in the U.S. who faced flight cancellations over the holidays amid winter storms and a breakdown with staffing technology at Southwest Airlines. They also ran into long lines, lost baggage, and cancellations and delays over the summer as travel demand roared back from the COVID-19 pandemic and ran into staffing cutbacks at airports and airlines in the U.S. and Europe.
The FAA said that it would provide frequent updates as it made progress.