Politics, funding and some finger pointing were front and center Saturday morning as government officials addressed the ripple effect of the Federal Aviation Administration’s nationwide ground stop that ran from approximately 3:30 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. Eastern time Friday.
Department of Transportation secretary Sean Duffy in a press conference on Saturday—that started with some technical difficulties of its own when the audio went out and had to have equipment replaced—eventually pointed to a decades-long lack of funding for aviation infrastructure as the fundamental issue at play in Friday’s shutdown, which officials said was precipitated by a routine maintenance upgrade at a remote location that caused a newly installed router to flood Tracon systems with 1,000 pings every 4 to 5 seconds.
The router installation was part of a re-wiring effort to replace copper wiring with modern fiber—a process that Duffy said was decades overdue because the funding for projects has not been there:
"Virtually every single institution in America has gone from copper to fiber, from analog to digital. Just maybe the FAA is the last one to be doing this work because the investments haven't been made." He appealed to Congress to “meet the moment” the disruption had caused to redouble their commitment to funding an aviation infrastructure overhaul.
"I've been talking about this for almost two years, and I've been asking the Congress for money. I've asked for a lot of money,” he said, acknowledging the legislature had allocated $12.5 billion to the efforts so far. The requested funding, however, would include $17.5 billion more. Without it, he said, the DOT spends $200 million annually to maintain an aging system.
Duffy refuted, but did not completely rule out, the idea that cybercrime or bad actors were in play, stating there was “no evidence” at this point of nefarious activities targeted at the U.S. aviation sector. Nevertheless, he confirmed additional investigations were underway.
He also did not hold back from criticizing government contractor L3Harris that owns the aging rails on which the data handoff systems currently are running.
Duffy suggested the quality of installation work could be in question or faulty equipment might be in play, but he took great care to distance the government from errors. He said the modernized systems the government wanted to build with appropriated funds would run on different, more advanced technologies:
“We will work with the greatest telecom companies in the world, which will be AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen. They're all working with us on the new architecture, but in the meantime, until I can build that, I'm stuck with L3Harris who owns this network."
Still, questioned about why such work was done in the middle of the busiest travel time of the week—Friday afternoon—did move Duffy to admit the department likely needs to reevaluate maintenance timing even at remote locations.
The Situation, Still on the Ground
Cirium reported 31 percent of flights had been canceled on Friday night, despite some airlines’ attempts to get operations restarted after dark. Flight Aware’s “Misery Map” of airline delays and cancellations ran red into Saturday morning. The aviation performance tracker between 7am and 11am eastern time had logged 528 delays and 885 cancellations so far on Saturday morning across all U.S. airports. United Airlines on Saturday morning requested a local ground stop for its own flights in and out of O’Hare as it dealt with congestion and recovery complications. Government officials said such local and patchwork stops might be ongoing as airports and carriers continue to untangle the situation this weekend.
A Business Travel News WhatsApp channel for travel buyers remained active as well, with comments suggesting they were prepping for a long weekend of monitoring traveler movements and keeping communications live—sometimes in ways they have not ever employed before.
“It’s going to be a long weekend,” one travel buyer lamented on BTN’s thread; while another said this morning they had more than 100 travelers impacted and they would continue monitoring over the weekend, with the hopes that a return to “normal” operations on Saturday would resolve the issue. But there were doubts.
“What a night,” said one travel manager who was the sole individual on duty for travel on Friday due to time zone assignments and co-workers on annual leave. That travel manager had 251 travelers booked across the forward 12 hours after the ground stop and 31 in transit with the risk of being stranded.
“I decided for the first time ever just to text them individually while in transit,” he said. “I had more info than they did on conditions and guided them to protect themselves. Thankfully, all on their way today with none sleeping at airports.” This travel manager additionally sent an email blast to all 600 travelers with scheduled flights in the coming days on what steps to take to avoid being stranded. “So far, so good.”
Another travel buyer in Canada told BTN she “handles all travel internally” and didn’t have the help of a Travel Management Company. She was on her own with international travelers, all trying to get back to Toronto.
“Luckily, minimal impacts,” she said but as of Saturday morning has a traveler stranded in Chicago, one in Phoenix and two in Columbus, Oh. She also had travelers in Europe. She was online until 1 a.m. eastern time Saturday monitoring, advising and rebooking travelers, and expects to stay online most of the day Saturday.
Others buyers BTN exchanged text messages with, were leaning heavily on their TMCs for support. “We advised [travelers] to remain where they were and to work directly with our TMC regarding any changes or alternative arrangements,” she said. “Our priority was to ensure travelers were kept informed and that necessary changes were managed through our TMC to… maintain visibility.”
One buyer was snared in potential complications because the program was in the middle of a platform migration to a newly contracted all-in-one TMC/booking supplier. “Having Slack helped as [we] could contact each set of travelers and point them to the support chat, check they have places to stay and—if not—book them overnight, etc.” That channel was great, he said, in its ability to reach out quickly and let travelers “know we are here.”
He said his new platform had an excellent dashboard that is linked to global incident information sources and quickly advises who is impacted. “Really impressive, TBH,” he said, adding that all but a handful of travelers had flown out or been re-booked by Saturday morning; BTN received that message at 11:50 a.m. eastern time.
One non-U.S. based travel manager weighed in, responding, “Something I realized during all these years is that you contact with travelers, they feel accompanied, even if they are very experienced [travelers]. They always thank you afterward and they spread the word. It helps them and others trust the travel program.”
Still, costs are involved with disruption recoveries, meaning that all organizations with significant business travel rely on infrastructure that operates smoothly. According to an IATA report issued in July, FAA-related disruptions affecting scheduled passenger flights grew substantially faster than overall air traffic in the period spanning 2015 to 2025, and generated an estimated $10.9 billion in costs for airlines and passengers. For corporations, specifically, after-hours TMC service desks, last-minute hotel night stays and additional meals and ground transportation, cost companies real money--plus, the wear and tear on employees that need support with duty of care. Airlines, for their part, have waived fees for changes and will issue refunds for cancelled flights.
The Legislative Picture
The U.S. Travel Association weighed in by noon on Saturday, urging Congress to act quickly on Senator Eric Schmidtt’s Modern Skies Act that would allocate the $17.5 billion balance that Duffy referenced in today’s comments.
“Secretary Duffy is absolutely correct about the funding and focus needed to build the world-class aviation system Americans deserve," said U.S. Travel CEO and president Geoff Freeman. "Yesterday’s nationwide ground stop is yet another clear signal that the Federal Aviation Administration lacks the resources necessary to modernize America’s aging aviation infrastructure.
"The travel industry urges Congress to promptly pass … [the] Modern Skies Act before the end of this Congress.”
Currently, the act has been referred to committees in both legislative chambers—the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee—and requires passage through both chambers and a presidential signature to become law.