US FAA lifts grounding order; flights resume
WASHINGTON, January 11, 2023
The US Federal Aviation Administration has lifted a ground stop that it issued on Wednesday morning following an outage to a system that alerts pilots to potential hazards on flight routes.
Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the US following an overnight outage to the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system that provides safety information to flight crews, said a FAA statement.
As of Wednesday morning, more than 5,800 flights in and out of the US had been delayed and more than 800 were cancelled. Airports across the country were affected, from Denver to Atlanta to New York City.
"This technology issue is causing significant operational delays across the National Airspace System," said Airlines for America, an industry group that represents major US airlines like Delta, American and United.
Normal operations are resuming, but delays are expected due to backlog of flights.
US President Joe Biden has been briefed, and the White House said there was no evidence of a cyberattack "at this point", said a BBC report.
The President said the FAA "expect [that] in a couple of hours they'll have a good sense of what caused it, and we'll respond at that time".
In a tweet, the White House Press Secretary said the President had called for a "full investigation".
