The Federal Aviation Administration has lifted the grounding order for all flights to the US, though it appears delays and cancellations will continue into the weekend.
Departures throughout the country were suspended for hours It was only the second time since 9/11 that more than 10,000 flights were disrupted, and weekend wrestling shows including AEW Full Gear, TNA Destination X and NJPW-CMLL Lucha Kingdom were thrown into doubt.
The Federal Aviation Agency of Mexico, AFAC, in response to questions, announced that it has suspended all flights to the United States. After the FAA lifted the grounding orderAFAC announced that adjustments were made to the routes of 193 flights, affecting 18,002 passengers at Mexican airports. AFAC said that a gradual resumption of air operations between the two countries is expected.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a briefing that telecom routers were overloaded with data, while DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication the problems posed a threat to the US, adding that it did not appear to be a cyber attack.
The ground stop lasted more than four hours, but was said to have been decided “out of an abundance of caution”. reports CNBC that JetBlue Airways told crews it would cancel the rest of the day’s flights, as well as other flights scheduled for Saturday, so crews and planes could be in place to resume operations.
A ground stop stops flights at their point of departure and can lead to further disruptions as flight crews reach their maximum number of working hours for the day. After 4 p.m. Friday, 11,000 flights were scheduled to depart from US airports, according to flight data company Cirum, carrying 1.5 million passengers. There were about 600 diverted flights, 104 of which were diverted to other airports.
