British Airways has cancelled a flight to New York that was due to depart London Heathrow at 10.30pm on Friday, and Virgin Atlantic faces likely disruption to three US-bound flights from Manchester Airport, after the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded all flights nationwide.
The FAA halted all departures across the United States "due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety", affecting holidaymakers travelling to and from UK airports. A spokesman for Manchester Airport confirmed that three US-bound flights scheduled to leave on Saturday morning, all operated by Virgin Atlantic, are likely to be affected if the situation remains unresolved.
Airline responses to the ground stop
A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson said: "We're aware of the ground stop order issued by the Federal Aviation Administration for all US airports. We're closely monitoring the situation and assessing any impact to our flights. We advise any customers due to travel to check their flight status at virginatlantic.com."
An American Airlines representative confirmed: "The FAA has temporarily paused departures nationwide. Flights already in the air can continue to their destinations. We expect disruption to our schedule for the rest of the day, depending on the length of the FAA's nationwide ground stop. It will be all hands-on deck across American to get customers on their way as soon as possible when the FAA lifts this ground stop."
Cause of the outage and official reassurances
US transportation secretary Sean Duffy revealed the FAA is probing a communications issue affecting regional air traffic control centres, according to the Associated Press. This marks only the second time flights have been grounded across the US since the September 11 terror attacks in 2001, with the FAA previously halting flights in January 2023 due to a system error.
US homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin stated: "There is no reason for the public to be afraid or scared for your loved ones. This isn't another 9/11... This is a telecommunications outage. Throughout FAA, out of abundant of caution, we have grounded all the flights, and all the flights are accounted for. As incoming flights, either internationally or the flights that are currently still in the air, we'll be dealing with those case by case. As you can imagine, there will be a priority list as they start coming in."
Impact and next steps
Mr Mullin reassured the public: "Everybody is safe. There is no reason to be concerned about your loved ones if they're flying or anything like that. I just want to make sure everybody's at ease about that." He continued: "There is no indication as of yet that this was a nefarious attack against us. It's just a telecommunication outage as of right now."
Mr Mullin recognised the severity of the situation, describing it as "a crisis". He explained: "Every agency that has an asset that is involved in this... we're all working together. But that's what we do, right? I don't want to get to say that this is a crisis but it is because we had to do a nationwide ground stoppage." However, he remained confident in the response: "It's what the government works well at. That's what we're here for, and so we are well positioned and communicating very well. The president took a lead in this immediately, and he gave us the assets and the communication to move forward in a fast way."
Mr Mullin cautioned that resolving the disruption will take "some time", urging people not to anticipate things being "turned around within the hour". "This is going to take some time, but once again, everybody is safe," he stated. "The flights are accounted for, and there should be no fear to the public at all."
