US Lifts Ground Stop Order, 800 Flights Already Cancelled, Govt Says It’ll be Slow Recovery

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has lifted a nationwide ground stop that shutdown over 19,000 airports across the country.

The ground stop which was attributed to an “analogue” Air traffic Control (ATC)  communication system affected over 8500 flights which could not take off. More than 8000 flights were eventually cancelled. The situation affected the global aviation industry as most US- bound flights from several continents were cancelled.

However, a new order has now allowed domestic US flights to take off, after what has been described as   the longest ground stop since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy blamed old air traffic control technology and overloaded routers.

Also,  Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin sated that aging ATC systems  were responsible for the ground stop and not terrorist threat as was earlier insinuated by some affected travelers.

During a joint press conference, Sean Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the ground stop had been issued due to inconsistent data from outdated equipment.

Duffy blamed the outage on old air traffic control systems that have not been updated because of a lack of Congressional funding, and made a plea for $50bn in funding for a new “state-of-the-art system.”