Flight delays stretch into Thursday after FAA outage

A wave of flight delays and cancellations rippled into Thursday after a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system outage grounded and canceled flights all over the U.S. on Wednesday.

Nearly 9,000 flights were delayed on Thursday, according to FlightAware, an online flight tracker. Over 1,200 flights were canceled.

The FAA temporarily ordered a pause on all flights Wednesday morning as it worked to fix an issue with its Notice to Air Mission (NOTAM) system, which communicates real-time flight hazards to pilots. More than 6,500 flights were delayed on Wednesday. The FAA eventually lifted the pause later Wednesday morning.

After Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the federal government was not ruling out nefarious activity in the outage, the FAA blamed a corrupted database file for the failure. 

The chaos caused by system outage came on the heels of mass flight cancellations and delays at Southwest Airlines over the holiday season, escalated pressure on Buttigieg and the Biden administration to prevent further snares in Americans’ air travel.

Conservative lawmakers pounced on the opportunity to blast the administration on the FAA mishaps.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee member Garret Graves (R-La.) said on Twitter that lawmakers will “aggressively pursue accountability.”

Former President Trump also took the time to chide Biden on the issue, saying inaccurately in a social media post that “All flights have been canceled throughout the Good Ol’ USA due to incompetence and the fact that we are now living in the equivalent of a Third World Nation.”