By — Associated Press Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/what-to-know-about-flights-after-the-u-s-nationwide-ground-stop Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter What to know about flights after the U.S. nationwide ground stop Nation Nov 14, 2026 1:32 PM EST Thousands of flights Saturday would likely be affected by delays or cancellations, but officials assured passengers that the nationwide ground stop was not caused by a nefarious actor and would not threaten ongoing safety. The longest flight stoppage in 25 years ended around 8:15 p.m. ET Friday, allowing some domestic flights to take off from U.S. airports. Officials expected a full recovery by Sunday. READ MORE: Thousands of flights canceled as airlines work to recover from nationwide ground stop Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication the failure was related to a cyberattack and that no lives were at risk. Here's what to know. Flights have resumed but the disruption continues The system was stable Saturday after Friday's massive disruption, Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bryan Bedford said. Ultimately, 12,000 scheduled flights were unable…
What to know about flights after the U.S. nationwide ground stop
In short
Air travel is steadily recovering following Friday's massive disruption, which prevented 12,000 scheduled flights from departing, including 9,000 commercial trips. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy explained that the system overloaded while a contractor was replacing legacy copper wiring with fiber wire, leaving investigators to determine if contractor error or a faulty router caused the failure. Although the air traffic system remained stable on Saturday, impacted travelers are entitled to free rebooking or full refunds from airlines. Meanwhile, officials emphasized that the network failure was entirely separate from concurrent Microsoft 365 disruptions.
Key points
- Regulators and security officials confirmed the flight stoppage resulted from infrastruct…: Regulators and security officials confirmed the flight stoppage resulted from infrastructure issues rather than foreign interference or a cyberattack.
- Airlines are federally required to provide affected passengers with either full refunds o…: Airlines are federally required to provide affected passengers with either full refunds or free rebooking options.
- The Federal Aviation Administration incident had no connection to the separate global out…: The Federal Aviation Administration incident had no connection to the separate global outage that temporarily affected Microsoft 365 services.