Travelers face disruption as some US flights resume after nationwide ground stop

Travel woes could continue for several more days, CNN aviation analyst and former managing director for the National Transportation Safety Board Peter Goelz said.

Airlines face several challenges, he said: Aircraft are out of position, and flight crews have reached their duty limits.

“Since we don’t know what happened, we don’t know how to fix it. This could occur again in Christmas week or Thanksgiving week,” Goelz said. He called for closer oversight of how Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is spending air traffic funding.

The public also needs to hear from FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, who Goelz says “has been missing in action” during “the most devastating failure for the FAA in my memory.”

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"Our Uber driver gave us pillows", stranded passenger in Atlanta acknowledges how kind everyone has been

2:13 • Source: CNN

"Our Uber driver gave us pillows", stranded passenger in Atlanta acknowledges how kind everyone has been

2:13

Yesterday’s nationwide ground stop and the thousands of subsequent flight cancellations have left passengers stuck at airports across the country, with one comparing the scenes at Atlanta’s Hartsfield–Jackson International Airport, the world’s busiest airport, to a “disaster zone.”

The man, named Joel, told CNN’s Victor Blackwell that he was traveling through Atlanta airport as part of his journey from Cancún, Mexico.

After his first flight landed in Atlanta, he learned of the nationwide ground stop through an alert on his phone. The plane for his connecting flight to Hartford, Connecticut, was on the tarmac and flight attendants were at the gate, but the pilot never arrived, so the flight was canceled, he said.

Though he was able to book a room at a hotel about 45 minutes from the airport, it seemed “a little sketchy,” so he returned to the airport and slept in an atrium on the second floor.

Despite the chaos, “everyone’s been very accommodating,” he said. “Our Uber driver actually gave us pillows. So there’s good people left in the world.”

Joel hopes to return to Hartford tonight. He said he is booked on a flight scheduled to depart after 10 p.m., but it has already been delayed.

After yesterday’s outage, many commercial airline pilots and flight attendants could be displaced from where they were originally due to be located.

Airlines often have crew scheduling teams that support pilots and flight attendants in schedule-building and rest accommodations.

While every case is different, crew members would be given a set period of rest ultimately determining whether they would be legal to fly today, depending on the length of trip they were on or the duration of their shift.

Airlines and their unions have rules as to how long these workers can actually stay up in order to work a flight.

Amid the ongoing disruption, it’s likely there are still crews that will have schedule changes today, whether they need to go home or are required to fly today.

With thousands of Democrats gathered in Denver for a conference following the midterms, flights stopping nationwide Friday had ground many in the party’s travel plans to a screeching halt, The New York Times reported.

Pete Buttigieg, former transportation secretary under the Biden administration, watched CNN’s broadcast of current Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s news conference, from a hotel bar along with Democratic officials and their staffers, including Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, Georgia’s Sen. Raphael Warnock and Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, according to the Times.

Duffy urged Congress to approve $50 billion dollars to revamp the air traffic control system, blaming old technology and overloaded routers for the ground stop. He warned more disruptions would happen unless the system is updated.

Buttigieg stood in the corner, watching the television in disbelief, while his colleagues munched on appetizers and checked their phones for updates, the Times reported.

“You can just write down the comic book asterisk swearing characters,” Buttigieg told a Times reporter, when asked for his thoughts on the conference. “I have questions.”

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Decades of failed upgrades leave US air traffic control system struggling, CNN transport analyst says

3:57 • Source: CNN

Decades of failed upgrades leave US air traffic control system struggling, CNN transport analyst says

3:57

Decades of failed upgrades and ineffective development strategies caused the US air traffic control system to struggle, CNN transport analyst Mary Schiavo said this morning.

“What happened today is that they were literally putting new technology, new digital technology, into an old analog system,” Schiavo told CNN’s Victor Blackwell. “It just couldn’t take it and it started sending out data that was giving air traffic controllers and aircraft the wrong radar returns.”

“Radio communications were failing … without radar, and without voice communications — the two things planes need to fly — the smartest thing was just to shut down the system and it was the safest thing to do,” the expert said.

“Although it is outrageous that this problem has been going on literally for decades,” she added.

Despite spending roughly $36bn to $50bn on air traffic control system developments, successive US administrations have found themselbes with little to show for the investment, Schiavo said.

“The US system is strained in many ways,” she added: “Air traffic control systems are horribly antiquated.”

You can see more analysis in the video at the top of this post.

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Travelers face flight disruptions and delays at Heathrow Terminal 3

0:16 • Source: CNN

Travelers face flight disruptions and delays at Heathrow Terminal 3

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Passengers arriving at London’s Heathrow Airport on Saturday described delays, confusion and uncertainty following widespread flight disruptions in the US, although some said they were fortunate to have avoided the worst of the chaos.

Emily, from Atlanta, was travelling with her two young children, aged eight months and almost three years, for a family holiday in London and Scotland. Their flight departed roughly two and a half hours late. She described confusion at the airport, saying there were no announcements in the lounge and little clarity about whether they would be able to leave. “It was just a weird experience because no one knew what was going on,” she said.

George, from Bristol, was returning from a holiday in Orlando and arrived at Heathrow around 50 minutes late. He took the disruption in stride. “Not much you can do about it, is there? Get on with it,” he said.

Tobias, returning from a business trip in New Jersey, said JFK airport was unusually quiet and calm despite the disruption. His flight was delayed by around 90 minutes. “I thought, oh Christ, this might be hell on earth,” he said, but found the airport surprisingly relaxed.

Olivia and Rob, also from Bristol, faced a longer journey home after their flight from Orlando was delayed by more than two hours at departure. Although the aircraft made up some time in the air, they missed their bus to Bristol and faced another two-hour wait at Heathrow. The couple said passengers at Orlando airport appeared to know more about the disruption than the ground staff.

Sean, from Seattle, arrived on time aboard an Alaska Airlines flight despite widespread cancellations at his home airport. Travelling to London for work, he said his flight was among the first to depart after the ground stop was lifted. “It was the weirdest on-time flight I’ll ever have in my life,” he said.

Stranded passenger hoped to surprise mother for 80th birthday

1:54 • Source: CNN

Stranded passenger hoped to surprise mother for 80th birthday

1:54

CNN’s Julia Vargas Jones met a woman stranded at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on her way to Phoenix for her mother’s 80th birthday.

Shawn Puckett arrived in Chicago from Charleston, South Carolina, but is now stranded on her way to the celebration. Her sister lives nearby but is already in Phoenix, Puckett said, leaving her with nowhere to stay.

Puckett said her daughter, who is also in the military, had planned to surprise them. “She’s a captain in the Army, and she was going to surprise both of us in Phoenix, but she’s stuck in LA.”

A person rests in a hallway at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey on Saturday.

More than 3,300 flights within, into, or out of the USare canceled for today, according to flight data tracker FlightAware, after a systems failure yesterday grounded all planes in the country.

As of 6:15 a.m. ET, Delta Air Lines canceled 19% of its flights, United Airlines canceled 16% of its flights and American Airlines canceled 14% of its flights slated for today.

Here’s what the Trump administration has said so far about the cause of the disruption.

Here’s the latest:

CNN’s Sophie Tanno, Adam Pourahmadi and Jacob Lev contributed to this reporting.

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Atlanta passenger hopes to make it to New Hampshire for her graduation

2:36 • Source: CNN

Atlanta passenger hopes to make it to New Hampshire for her graduation

2:36

A traveler stranded at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has told how she may miss her graduation in New Hampshire due to the ongoing flight disruption after a major system failure temporarily grounded all US domestic flights.

Speaking to CNN’s Victor Blackwell, Precious told how she is graduating today with a Masters in Business Administration in Manchester, New Hampshire.

She had initially arrived at Atlanta on Friday night hoping to catch her flight, only to find it was disrupted. She was back at the airport early this morning alongside her mother Pat, with hopes of catching another flight.

You can watch the video above for the full exchange.

Expect "days, not hours" before flights get back to normal, travel expert tells CNN

2:26 • Source: CNN

Expect "days, not hours" before flights get back to normal, travel expert tells CNN

2:26

It is likely going to take “days, not hours” for normal flight schedules to return following the hours-long ground stop across the US yesterday, a travel expert has told CNN.

“Air travel (is) fantastically complicated. Air traffic control is a game of three-dimensional chess,” Simon Calder, Travel Correspondent for the UK’s Daily Telegraph, told CNN’s Victor Blackwell. “Everything has to work perfectly, especially at a peak time.”

Friday afternoon, he explained, is the busiest period of the week at US airports.

Tens of thousands of airplane seats have been taken out of the transatlantic air market, Calder said, causing “massive disruption.”

“Undoubtedly, there will be people who are still not able to travel until the start of next week,” he said, noting that some passengers will likely give up on the hopes of traveling and “just abandon their trip.”