WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — There is no sign of a cyberattack “at this point” in the computer problem that triggered US authorities to pause all domestic air travel departures Wednesday, the White House said, adding that President Joe Biden has been briefed.
“The president has been briefed by the secretary of transportation this morning on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA system outage. There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes. The FAA will provide regular updates,” tweeted Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, referring to the transport department and federal aviation authority.
US flights were slowly resuming departures and a ground stop was lifted after the FAA scrambled to fix a system outage overnight that had forced a halt to all US departing flights.
More than 6,000 flights were delayed and nearly 1,000 canceled according to the FlightAware website as officials said it will take hours to recover from the halt. The numbers were still rising.
The cause of the problem with a pilot-alerting system, which delayed thousands of flights in the United States, was unclear, but US officials said they had so far found no evidence of a cyberattack.
The outage occurred at a typically slow time after the holiday travel season, but demand remains strong as travel continues to recover to near pre-pandemic levels.
“Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the US following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted. We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem,” the FAA Tweeted.
The number of flights impacted rose even after the ground stop was canceled. One issue airlines are facing is trying to get planes in and out of crowded gates, which is causing further delays.
Captain Chris Torres, vice president of the Allied Pilots Association, said the outage could impact traffic through Friday.
“This thing was lifted at 9am Eastern. That doesn’t mean the problem stops at 9am. This is going to cause ripple effects,” said Torres, whose members fly for American Airlines. “The end result of this is going to be very similar to big weather events.”
The FAA had earlier ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures after its pilot alerting system crashed and the agency had to perform a hard reset around 2am, officials said. Flights already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations.
US President Joe Biden ordered the Transportation Department to investigate and said the cause of the failure was unknown. Asked if a cyber attack was behind the outage, Biden told reporters, “We don’t know.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pledged a “process to determine root causes and recommend next steps.”
Shares of US carriers initially fell in Wednesday’s premarket trading, but most rallied after the market opened to positive territory as flights resumed.
After dropping more the 19% last year — its third consecutive year of decline — the S&P 500 airlines index has gotten off to a strong start this year, up 15.5%, as travelers return to the skies.
Southwest Airlines shares were flat, while Delta Air Lines Inc, United Airlines and American Airlines shares rose. JetBlue and Spirit each rose about 2%.
A trade group representing the US travel industry, including airlines, called the FAA system failure “catastrophic.”
“America’s transportation network desperately needs significant upgrades,” Geoff Freeman, president of the US Travel Association, said in a statement. “We call on federal policymakers to modernize our vital air travel infrastructure.”
Senate Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell, a Democrat, said the panel would investigate. “We will be looking into what caused this outage and how redundancy plays a role in preventing future outages,” she said.
A total of 21,464 US flights were scheduled to depart Wednesday with a capacity of nearly 2.9 million passengers, data from Cirium showed. –NNN-AGENCIES
