Travelers face hundreds of delays, cancellations at Austin airport after FAA ground stop

AUSTIN, Texas - Flight delays and cancellations continue to ripple across the country and heavily impact travelers at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) a day after a telecommunications error triggered a rare nationwide ground stop.

By the numbers:

By Saturday evening, AUS had recorded more than 150 flight delays and over 120 cancellations. 

Nationwide, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford reported that 12,000 flights failed to take off on Friday, with between 4,000 and 5,000 of Saturday’s 41,000 scheduled flights expected to be canceled as airlines work through the backlog.

What we know:

Although the FAA announced Saturday morning that its systems had stabilized following overnight recovery efforts — and stated that despite ongoing delays and cancellations, operations should be back on track for a full recovery by Sunday night — the operational fallout left passengers scrambling at the terminal.

"We had controllers who worked throughout the night helping through the recovery. Maintenance technicians, our airline partners, our airport partners — everybody came together to try to mitigate this just as quickly as possible," Bedford said.

Travelers scramble for alternatives

Among those caught in the disruption at Austin-Bergstrom was the University of Miami swimming team, whose morning flight was canceled before their rebooked flight also was hit with a delay.

For other passengers, getting out of Texas required last-minute road trips and extended waits at the gate. One traveler headed to Boston for a speaking engagement said she had to drive two-and-a-half hours from Houston after her original flight was canceled Friday night.

"We've been trying to find a flight. There's just been nothing available," she said while rushing to make her connection. "The only thing that was available was this flight here in Austin — and it's actually delayed. So we drove about two-and-a-half hours from Houston, and we got here just in time. I literally need to go board."

Another traveler described being told to settle in for a long wait after arriving at the airport: "I'm like, 'What do you mean?' They're like, 'Baby, wrap it up. Find you something else to do because you're going to be here for a second till the flights get back rolling out soon.'"

Equipment failure – not a cyberattack – blamed for outage 

Dig deeper:

Federal officials have pushed back against online speculation that the outage was linked to a cyberattack or artificial intelligence. Bedford stated there is "zero evidence of anything nefarious" or AI-related, confirming the shutdown was strictly an equipment issue.

According to U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, the disruption began Friday when a contractor at a remote FAA facility was performing routine maintenance to transition aging telecommunication lines from copper wire to fiber. Investigators are working to determine whether the outage was caused by contractor user error or a faulty router.

Duffy used Saturday’s briefing to renew his call for Congress to approve $50 billion to overhaul the nation’s aging air traffic control infrastructure with new hardware and towers.

"It gets to be frustrating where everyone says they want to do it, and the president is pushing it, but we don't get the resources," Duffy said. "And I think this is the moment — if we don't start to switch out our systems, how long are we going to wait, America and Congress? And I think this is a sign for them to lean in."

What Sunday travelers need to know 

What you can do:

Looking ahead to Sunday, Austin-Bergstrom officials expect more than 37,000 departing travelers — a busy volume, though not record-breaking. Airport officials are advising anyone flying out on Sunday to arrive at least two hours before their scheduled departure.

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