Canadian travellers were caught up in a rare U.S.-wide flight shutdown after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered all departing flights across the country to remain on the ground Friday.
The FAA reopened the airspace at 8:15 p.m., approximately 4 hours after the initial outage reports. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy blamed the ground stop on “instability” from an “incredibly old air traffic system.”
“We have old switches, old routers, we use 1980s little copper lines,” Duffy said. “It’s an old system that went down. It went down everywhere. It got overloaded.”
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said the incident was not sparked by a cyberattack, but investigation will continue.
Canadian travellers caught in the disruption
Toronto Pearson said shortly before 5 p.m. ET that flights between the airport and the United States were being affected by the FAA’s nationwide ground stop.
“There are currently no scheduled U.S.-bound departures or arrivals at this time,” the airport said, urging passengers to check directly with their airline before heading to Pearson.
Montréal-Trudeau International Airport was also quick to suspend all flights to and from U.S. airports until further notice, warning passengers to expect delays and cancellations.
Over 120 U.S. arrivals and departures were cancelled at Toronto Pearson International Aiport while Air Canada and Porter cancalled all remaining Friday U.S.-inbound and outbound flights at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport.
Vancouver, Montreal-Trudeau, Calgary, Ottawa and Edmonton reported cascading delays on U.S. bound departures.
Why did the FAA ground flights across the U.S.?
The FAA ordered the nationwide stop Friday afternoon after a communications failure affected air traffic control centres across the United States.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the issue was affecting all 22 Air Route Traffic Control Centers, which manage aircraft travelling between airports. FAA technicians were investigating the problem.
Aircraft already in the air were allowed to continue and land, while departing planes were ordered to stay on the ground. International arrivals were being handled on a case-by-case basis, according to the FAA.
The agency described the move as necessary because of “extraordinary circumstances” and safety concerns.
By late Friday afternoon, thousands of flights within, into or out of the U.S. had already been delayed or cancelled as the disruption spread through the network.
Nationwide ground stops are extremely rare. Friday’s order was only the second involving all U.S. departures since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The other came in January 2023, when a failure of the FAA system that distributes safety notices to pilots temporarily halted domestic departures.
Travellers report delays and confusion at Pearson
Travellers at Toronto Pearson were already seeing the effects of the FAA ground stop by Friday evening.
CBC journalist Devin Heroux posted a photo of a Pearson departure board showing several U.S.-bound flights delayed or cancelled, including service to Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Washington and Atlanta.
“Every flight to the US within the next couple of hours has been delayed/cancelled,” Heroux wrote on X.
Others described confusion over how far the disruption was spilling into Canadian operations.
Toronto radio host Travis Dhanraj said he had been sitting on a domestic flight at Pearson for about an hour when the pilot told passengers the U.S. problems were affecting Canadian flights as well.
“Lots of confusion,” Dhanraj wrote.
Another traveller, Jo Awabi, said a flight out of Toronto had been cancelled the previous day and automatically rebooked for Friday evening. She said she managed to switch to a morning departure instead, writing that she had “hit the buzzer beater” before the latest disruption intensified.
What should Canadian travellers do?
Canadians flying to the U.S. Friday evening should check their flight status directly with their airline before leaving for the airport.
Travellers connecting through an American airport could also face delays or missed connections even if the first leg of their journey is outside the United States.
Pearson and Montréal-Trudeau said they would continue providing updates as the situation develops.
Even once the FAA begins allowing departures again, delays and cancellations could linger as airlines work to reposition aircraft and crews caught out of place by the shutdown.
Nav Canada lifts traffic control measures at major airports
Nav Canada has lifted traffic management measures at four major Canadian airports after the disruption of cross-border travel.
The measures were in place at Toronto Pearson, Montréal-Trudeau, Calgary and Vancouver to safely manage traffic volumes, the agency said Friday.
Travellers should still expect delays and check directly with their airline before heading to the airport.
Nav Canada stressed that its own systems are operating normally.
Source: ca.news.yahoo.com
