Flights Grounded Across U.S. Amid FAA System Outage

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced early on Wednesday that a system outage has temporarily forced flights to be grounded across the U.S., adding that there is "no estimate for the restoration of service at this time."

The agency, which didn't specify what caused the failure in its Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, wrote that technicians are currently working to restore the system and that a hotline is available for additional information.

Former NASA Associate Administrator for Communications Bettina Inclán wrote on Twitter that she was on a United flight at the time of the FAA system outage and that she was informed by the flight's pilot of a "nation wide outage of FAA computer systems."

Inclán said that the system has "been down since midnight and forcing a stop to all air travel," according to the flight's pilot. "Lots of stranded passengers and missed connections," Inclán added.

The communications expert said that the same United pilot told passengers that the system outage "doesn't let him check flight plans and follow federal regulations." According to what the pilot told them, "United, American Airlines, and Southwest have said they won't fly until the FAA issue is resolved."

Responding to a request for comment, United Airlines told Newsweek that "United has temporarily delayed all domestic flights and will issue an update when we learn more from the FAA."

It confirmed that "the FAA system that sends out important real-time flight hazards & restrictions to all commercial airline pilots - Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) - is currently suffering a nationwide outage."

American Airlines told Newsweek: "The Federal Aviation Administration is experiencing an outage with its NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system, which provides critical flight safety operational information. We are closely monitoring the situation, which impacts all airlines, and working with the FAA to minimize disruption to our operation and customers. We encourage customers to check aa.com for the latest flight information."

Newsweek has also contacted Southwest Airlines for comment.

Passengers stranded at airports across the U.S. are waiting for the issue to be resolved before flights can be resumed. Some had already boarded their planes when the flight was grounded.

"AmericanAir I've been sitting on a full plane at the gate at LAX for 2+ hours for a system issue with the FAA. When will this be resolved?," wrote a stranded passenger in Los Angeles.

"#FAA system down nationwide - all flights are grounded indefinitely. Unfortunately that includes mine," tweeted a United passenger on Wednesday.

Flights were also reportedly grounded at Tampa International Airport in Florida and at airports in Hawaii, Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, Austin in Texas, and others.

The full extent of the delays across the U.S. due to the FAA system failure is yet unclear, with the agency's latest update on the situation stating that there's "no current estimated time for restoration."

Update, 1/11/23 7:15 a.m. ET: This breaking news article has been updated to include the latest developments.

Update, 1/11/23 7:30 a.m. ET: This article was updated with a response from American Airlines.