FAA to manage international flights case by case during nationwide ground stop

Prior FAA halt in 2023 lasted two hours and contributed to more than 1,000 cancellations

International flights will be managed on a case-by-case basis, the Federal Aviation Administration said, as the agency on Friday afternoon halted departures nationwide over a disruption to air-traffic control communications, citing extraordinary circumstances and safety concerns.

An alert on the FAA’s status page Friday afternoon told aircraft operators, “Due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety. Attention all aircraft operators, by order of the Federal Aviation Administration command center all airports are ground stopped.”

The nationwide halt is the second time in recent years the FAA has taken the extraordinary step of halting all departures across the country. In 2023, a nationwide ground stop was ordered amid an outage of the FAA’s Notice to Airmen system, which provides critical information to pilots. That order lasted for two hours, contributing to more than 1,000 flight cancellations.

Earlier this year, flights at New York-area airports were halted when a contractor accidentally cut a fiber communications line in New Jersey.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote on X that there had been a communication issue affecting multiple air route traffic-control centers, which handle high-altitude flights covering large swaths of the country. “FAA technicians are investigating the issue,” he wrote.

The Wall Street Journal said updates would follow as news develops; its report was last updated at 4:36 p.m. ET.