FAA lifts nationwide ground stop that ensnared airports and flights across the U.S.

Thousands of flights were canceled during the five-hour ground stop as both DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and TSA Secretary Sean Duffy called for funding from Congress.

The FAA announced late Friday that flights can resume nationwide, hours after a ground stop that halted air travel across the country.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the announcement during a press conference, as more than 3,000 flights were still in the air at the time of the ground stop. According to Duffy, 10,000 flights were delayed, and 5,000 were canceled amid one of the largest travel disruptions in recent memory.

“No one was in danger; the system went down,” Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said about the ground stop, which lasted for five hours on Friday. “We reacted the way we were trained to react.”

Mullin also stated that the new technology and equipment being installed “overwhelmed” the system, while Duffy didn’t rule out another outage.

“Nickel and diming it together does not work,” Mullin said.

Travelers at airports camped out during the ground stop or sought alternative means to reach their destination. The issue promptly affected numerous college football and other sports teams who were traveling across the country for various games on Saturday. Duffy prioritized sports for those schools, namely the football programs.

“I would encourage those football teams to reach out to the FAA, to schedule their flight times and make sure they can move,” Duffy said.

During his time at the podium, Duffy stressed the need for Congress to fund repairs for new equipment.

According to Mullin, the system would require an overhaul costing $50 billion. On Wednesday, Duffy told reporters that he spoke with President Trump to urge Congress to provide the FAA with $30 billion for repairs. Previously, $12.5 billion was earmarked for repairs through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The ground stop was the first since January 11, 2023, when a failure in the Notice to Air Missions system prompted a two-hour ground stop across the country. More than 10,000 flights were delayed before travel resumed. Before that, the first nationwide ground stop was announced during the September 11 attacks in 2001.