JetBlue’s current terminal, JFK Terminal 5, from the air
If you were flying somewhere in the United States Wednesday morning, you didn’t get very far. Thousands of domestic flights were grounded early Wednesday, after a Federal Aviation Administration computer systems failure left pilots, airlines, and airports without important safety information required for safe departures and advises regarding potential hazards along a flight route or at a location that could affect the flight. The service is designated as NOTAM, or Notice to Air Missions.
As of Wednesday morning, the agency said that it was “making progress” in restoring its systems.
The FAA said that it expected departures to resume at 9 a.m. EST at most airports and fulfilled its promise with 3 minutes to spare. Some 4,013 flights within, into and out of the United States had been delayed as of 9:06 a.m., according to FlightAware, a service that tracks such data. An additional 713 were cancelled.
Departures did not resume at airports in Newark and Atlanta “due to air traffic congestion in those areas,” the FAA said.
In a statement early Wednesday morning, American Airlines, the world’s largest carrier, said that the outage “impacts all airlines,” adding that the carrier was “working with the FAA to minimize disruption to our operation and customers.”
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
