Flights begin to resume in the US after system failure

You flights of the United States are gradually resuming this Wednesday (11) after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA, its acronym in English) moved to fix an overnight system outage that impacted thousands of flights.

The FAA had previously ordered airlines to stop all domestic takeoffs after its pilot alert system for air missions was turned off.

The FAA said that departures were resuming at Newark and Atlanta airports “due to air traffic congestion in those areas. We expect departures to resume at other airports at 9 am (New York time).”

Flights that were already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations.

US President Joe Biden has been informed about the FAA system outage, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Twitter.

There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this time, but the president has called for an investigation, she said.

The FAA said it was working to restore a system that alerts pilots to hazards and changes to airport facilities and procedures that had stopped processing up-to-date information.

“The FAA is still working to fully restore the Notam (Notice to Air Missions) system after an outage. While some functions are starting to come back online, National Air System operations remain limited,” the FAA said on Twitter.

A total of 32,578 flights were delayed as of 8:07 am (New York time), the flight tracking website showed. flights FlightAware, without citing reasons. Another 409 entering, entering or leaving the country were also cancelled.

Shares of US airlines fell in pre-market trade on Wednesday.

A Notam is a notice containing information essential to personnel involved in flight operations, but not known early enough to be disseminated by other means.

Information can be up to 200 pages long to flights international long haul routes and may include items such as runway closures, bird hazard warnings and construction obstacles.