Thousands of flights around the country were delayed Wednesday morning when a computer issue within the FAA’s NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system caused a massive disruption to air travel.
Around one point, all departing flights nationwide were grounded. That restriction was lifted shortly before 9am. Still hundreds of flights were canceled and thousands delayed. Today alone, it’s estimated 21,000 flights are scheduled to take off.
Albany International Airport says at least six flights were delayed Wednesday morning and encourages anyone traveling today to check their flight status prior to arriving at the airport.
It’s still not known what caused the problem. Government officials say there is no evidence of a cyber attack, though they continue to investigate.
After a rebooting of the system, the FAA says flights are returning to normal.
Update 5: Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted.
— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023
We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem
feature photo: Ron Cogswell, Flickr Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0)