All departing US flights grounded due to 'communications problem'

US air regulators on Friday issued a rare nationwide ground stop for all departing flights citing a communications problem affecting air traffic control towers, in a move that caused immediate confusion for travelers.

The Federal Aviation Administration "issued a nationwide ground stop for all US airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers," the agency said. "FAA technicians are investigating the issue."

The FAA has announced similar orders in recent years on individual airlines due to communications issues, usually lasting a couple of hours or less. Systemwide groundings nationwide are far less common.

In January 2023, the FAA called a nationwide ground stop due to problems with the Notice to Air Missions system (NOTAM), which provides information to pilots about hazards, changes to airport facilities and information that can affect flights.

That outage lasted just under two hours, and was thought at the time to be the first nationwide grounding since 9/11.

Friday's FAA order came a day after US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy formally asked Congress for US$30.1 billion in funds to upgrade and modernise the US Air Traffic Control System.

"This investment is critical to complete the modernization of our national airspace -- delivering a resilient telecommunications backbone for air traffic controllers, modern hardware and software, state-of-the-art control towers, and world-class airport infrastructure,” Duffy and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought wrote in a letter to lawmakers.