Atlanta Airport Delays Persist After Nationwide Ground Stop

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was still dealing with widespread disruption on November 14, after a nationwide ground stop halted departing flights for more than four hours on November 13. FlightAware listed 394 cancellations and 81 delays at the Atlanta airport as of 6 a.m., with most involving Delta flights.

The FAA lifted the ground stop at 8:15 p.m. Eastern time. Federal officials said connectivity failures at air traffic hubs across the region led to the halt, which was issued as a precaution while more than 3,500 aircraft were in the air. The disruption affected a huge number of flights and could have impacted over one million people traveling.

At Atlanta, some passengers described hours aboard aircraft and missed connections. Andre Bellos said he had been traveling to Los Angeles for a rock and roll induction ceremony. He and other passengers remained on the plane for about five hours before they could get off.

Frontier rebooked Bellos for Saturday morning, but the replacement flight was delayed. He gave up on the trip and booked a flight back to Chicago, where he was not expected to arrive until Sunday. Bellos said he was disappointed to miss the event but grateful the disruption was not caused by terrorism.

Officials attributed the outage to aging telecommunications equipment that overloaded during maintenance work to replace copper lines with fiber. Investigators are examining whether a router fault or an installation error was responsible. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the air traffic systems were back online and called for $50 billion from Congress to modernize FAA telecommunications. Airport officials expected operations to return to normal by Sunday night and urged passengers to check flight status before leaving for the airport.