The BBC quoted the FAA as saying Wednesday’s outage was due to “database file corruption”, adding that “there is currently no evidence of a cyber attack”.
Release Date – 11:30 AM, Thu – 12 January 23
Washington: About 10,000 flights in and out of the United States have been delayed and more than 1,300 more have been cancelled, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The BBC quoted the FAA as saying Wednesday’s outage was due to “database file corruption”, adding that “at this time, there is no evidence of a cyber attack”.
While normal air traffic operations are slowly resuming, further delays are expected through at least Thursday and beyond as airlines try to get planes in and out of crowded gates.
Airports across the country have been affected, from Denver to Atlanta to New York City.
The technical issues mark the first grounding of U.S. flights in nearly two decades.
President Joe Biden has called for a “full investigation,” the White House press secretary said.
Meanwhile, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN that the FAA, after discovering violations in its air mission notification system, acted “at a high level.” Flights were grounded due to the “caution” of the system, which provides pilots with “real-time safety information about closed runways, equipment outages, and other potential hazards along the route or at locations that could affect flight”.
“Now that we’ve gotten past the morning’s immediate outage, my main interest is to understand exactly how this is possible and what steps need to be taken to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” Buttigieg said.
Major U.S. airlines said they were still monitoring the situation closely.
While American Airlines said it was working with the FAA to minimize disruption to customers, United Airlines said it would waive rebooking fees and reschedule customers for flights departing on or before January 16, the BBC reported. any fare difference.
Delta said it was “safely focused on managing our operations during this morning’s FAA ground stop for all carriers,” adding that it would provide an update as soon as possible.
For international passengers, Air Canada said the outage would affect cross-border operations on Wednesday, but could not initially say how much the impact would be.
The flag carrier said it would institute a “good faith policy” so affected passengers could change their travel plans.
Meanwhile, Paris’ Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports said they expected delays to U.S. flights, and Air France said it was monitoring the situation.
For UK passengers, British Airways said its flights to and from the US would operate as planned, and Virgin Atlantic said it would continue to operate its US flight schedule from the UK.
However, some U.S. flights may be affected by delays, the airline said.
Lufthansa and Iberia said they were still operating normal flights to and from the United States.
