For the first time since 9/11 the Federal Aviation Administration has issued an extremely rare ground stop for all flights scheduled to leave the United States until further notice. This is due to “extraordinary circumstances and reasons of safety”, at the time of writing, exact reasons have yet to be determined.
This massive ground stop has resulted in nearly 7,000 delayed or canceled flights across the US, affecting over 1 million travelers. For all inbound international flights, they will be handled on a “case by case basis” as to whether they can land, divert to other airports, or return to their original destinations.
Here is what is currently known about the ground stop situation, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated that it was triggered by a “communication issue impacting All Route Traffic Control Centers.”
Aside from a malfunction with the pilot notification system in January 2023, the only other time this has been used was during 9/11. The Department of Homeland Security has stated that the preliminary investigations show no indication of a “nefarious attack” and that it appears to be due to a telecommunications outage.
The impact will be severe, especially for anyone who was supposed to be traveling today, or in the coming days, as the mass cancellations will send ripples of delays throughout thousands of flights for the coming days. FAA technicians are currently investigation the source of the outage, but there is not yet an estimated timeline for when the ground stop will be lifted.
Hopefully you were not about to embark on surf trip via air travel, if so, it could be wise to reconsider and try to alter your plans to save the headache of dealing with any major airports for the next few days.
What about flight refunds for the ground stop?
Unfortunately, for all those with disrupted travel plans, the airlines will not be reimbursing customers as this was outside of their control. Given the ground stop was called by the FAA, airlines are not liable for compensation. Travel insurance, depending on the plan, may be able to help recoup costs lost to the stoppage but wait times for resolving claims will likely take longer than ever before.
If you happened to book your flights with a credit card, especially the higher-end travel cards, they may come with insurance to cover unforeseen events leading to canceled flights. Now would be a good time to check your policy if you booked with your credit card.
Since this is an unprecedented situation, it’s hard to say how it will affect the 1 million or more travelers impacted.
Why did this happen?
Although exact causes are unknown, comments and threads have quickly popped up with theories.
The recent Microsoft Outlook crash, from yesterday November 12, has fueled speculation that the ground stop is part of a larger, systemic infrastructure failure rather than an isolated glitch. Whenever major corporate and government systems experience issues within a short window, public theories usually focus on the coinciding occurrences.
Until the FAA and federal investigators complete their technical post-mortem, the reasons will remain unconfirmed. Given the high-level of distrust with official narratives since the pandemic, whatever is said will likely be questioned and theories will continue to pop up and evolve like one giant case of the coconut wireless.
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