Thousands in travel limbo as FAA ground stop cancels hundreds of flights at DIA

DENVER — Even with the Federal Aviation Administration’s nationwide ground stop lifted Friday nightthousands are still in travel limbo.

According to FlightAware, Denver International Airport saw more than 450 canceled flights and more than 600 delays on Friday. The airport saw a six-hour gap between flights taking off, from roughly 1:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Mountain Time.

“It’s interesting to be in the airport and traveling during this unprecedented time,” said Piercen Sturdavant, who arrived from Tucson early Friday and was about to take a connecting flight to LaGuardia Airport in New York when the ground stop changed his plans. Now he’s stuck in the Mile High City.

“The next available flight [Saturday] was at 11:59 p.m.,” he said. “I’ve got the whole day in Denver. Maybe I’ll explore a little bit.”

It’s just the third time the FAA has issued a nationwide ground stop, and the first since 2023. This time, a communications outage caused the travel chaos.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a briefing Friday night that the public was never in danger, and that “there is nothing that indicates” the incident was caused by a cyberattack.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the stop was due to “instability” in systems responsible for radar and communications at major traffic control facilities across the country.

Aviation expert and pilot Steve Cowell told Denver7 the FAA “has current contractors working to improve the system, and what they’re trying to also do is to future-proof it to a certain extent.”

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Thousands in travel limbo as nationwide ground stop cancels hundreds of flights at Denver Int’l Airport

The technology failures are causing a ripple effect. Some lucky travelers still had a chance to get out of town late Friday at DIA.

“Hoping to get out of here and arrive at Portland at 1:45 a.m.,” said Christy Youngsma. “We have a walking tour scheduled tomorrow at 10 a.m. So it’s all systems go once we’re out of here.”

For many though, the flights resuming came too late.

Renee Bailon was unable to make it to Las Vegas on Friday, and had to debate whether to reschedule or cancel and head back to her Denver home.

“Standing in a two-hour line, you get up there and then you want to reschedule, but you’re scared if you do, that how are you going to wait before you get to fly out again? And is it worth it?” she said.

Michael Sykes works on the B Concourse for United Ground Express. He was also trying to get to family in Orlando this weekend for their Thanksgiving celebration.

“Terrified for all the hundreds of people I’ve seen that are on the concourse that had to get cots set up or that had to just randomly book a hotel, my heart goes out to them,” he said. “And I hope that there’s enough accommodations for everyone tonight.”

Cowell admits that the impacts will likely last days.

“The airlines have been so good about managing capacity,” he told Denver7. “There’s very few seats now, extra seats on any given airplane. So people from canceled flights may be stuck.”

“So many people got rolled over,” Sturdavant said. “It’s gonna take a couple days for everyone to get on a on a flight to wherever they need to go, just because it’s so congested, millions of people, just all of a sudden, you know, it’s nuts.”

DIA personnel are trying to do what they can. The airport extended dining, retail and info booth hours Friday night, and its customer service team plans to stay online until 2 a.m. Saturday morning.

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