The flow of air traffic in the Northeast is returning to normal after a massive ATC outage on Monday, but disruptions could linger as the recovery continues.
Ground stops were lifted at New York-JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and two smaller New York-area airports Monday evening, allowing hours-long delays to gradually clear.
By midnight on Monday, 8,400 flights into, out of, or within the U.S. had been delayed, and 1,141 were canceled, according to data from tracking website FlightAware. While not all of the cancellations and delays were linked directly to the outage, a substantial number came from the New York and Philadelphia metro areas, with knock-on effects evident in markets such as Boston.
The meltdown began around 1:30 p.m. Monday when a telecommunications circuit at the Philadelphia TRACON failed. The FAA then discovered that a critical backup line in New Jersey had been accidentally cut by an Amtrak construction crew.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced around 6 p.m. Monday that the cable had been repaired, allowing flights to resume. He cautioned that it could take some time for delays to clear and advised travelers to check the status of their flight with their airline.
Earlier in the day, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told reporters that the circuit that failed is one of the older L3 Verizon circuits that his agency is currently in the process of replacing. He said the incident underscored the importance of continuing the FAA’s ATC modernization drive.
Data from FlightAware showed a relatively small number of cancellations and delays at Newark, Philadelphia, and Teterboro Airport in New Jersey on Tuesday morning.
