News / Transportation
Flight Cancellations and Delays Minimal Day After US Outage
by Christy Weinberg · January 12, 2023
Recently, the system that offers safety information to pilots failed. A day later, flight cancellations and delays have been minimal, after the US outage.
Minimal Flight Cancellations and Delays
Airplanes were grounded after the technical failure, causing thousands of travelers to be displaced. Today, the Orlando Sentinel reports that 636 delays have been confirmed for U.S. air travel, according to the FlightAware website.
Photo: Eugene Garcia/Associated Press
Altogether, 82 flights have been cancelled. Many had their suspicions about what caused the disruption.
US Outage
The Federal Aviation Administration reports that their first indications "traced the outage to a damaged database file." The FAA will take steps to avoid a similar disruption in the future.
Photo: Orlando International Airport
American air travel depends on a computer system called NOTAM's. Standing for Notice to Air Missions, it generates alerts.
Pilots and airline dispatchers are required to review notices before takeoff. Information includes bad weather, runway closures, and other factors that could affect the flight.
Photo: Virgin.com
Once upon a time, the system was telephone-based. It moved online several years ago.
Late Tuesday, the system broke down. It was fixed midmorning on Wednesday.
Credit: Breeze Airways
In response, the FAA prevented planes from taking off. This led to more than 1,300 canceled flights, and 9,000 delays by early Wednesday evening on the East Coast.
Pete Buttigieg is the Transportation Secretary. In a news conference, he states that the problems "led to a ground stop because of the way safety information was moving through the system."
Photo: Videvo.net
Some compared the outage to the nationwide shutdown after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Tim Campbell, a former senior vice president of air operations at American Airlines, shares that for a long time, there has been concern about the FAA's technology.
He says that the systems "are old mainframe systems that are generally reliable, but they are out of date." Many thought the aftermath would be worse, but we're happy to report that flight cancellations and delays were minimal a day after the US outage!
Tags: FAAFlight Cancellationsflight delaysNotice to Air MissionsUS Outage
Christy Weinberg
Christy is a West Coast writer with a special place in her heart for Disneyland Resort and Aulani. Growing up near the Parks, she was an Annual Passholder for about twenty years, often frequenting the Resort several times per week. Though she recently moved to the Pacific Northwest, she carries the magic with her by writing about Disney and connecting with the Disney community on social media.
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