Flight operations in the United States are returning to normal operations as the system is stable, U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Bryan Bedford said on Saturday, adding full schedules is expected by the end of Sunday.
On Friday, U.S. media reported that the FAA had issued an advisory citing "extraordinary circumstances" and "reasons of safety" as grounds for the nationwide ground stop, describing it as a rare move. The FAA then lifted a nationwide ground stop hours later.
More than 10,000 flights were disrupted on Friday, and cancellations and delays continued through the weekend.
At Chicago's O'Hare International, one of the busiest airports in the country, hundreds of cancellations and delays left airlines scrambling to untangle a complex logistical mess, with planes, pilots and cabin crews all out of sync.
A passenger said she was on her way to Los Angeles to catch a cruise when the ground stop was ordered.
"We got out on the tarmac and everything stopped. The pilot was really amazing, trying to keep us updated on what was going on. But of course, some people were getting a little antsy and not understanding that it's the FAA, there's nothing anybody can really do, because it's the government," said the passenger, Ellen Curry.
"And so we just paced it out and ran with the punches yesterday. It was a little frustrating because it was like 'this one is going out, this one is going out, and then they cancel.' You get to the gate, cancelled, cancelled, so a lot of cancellations," she added.
This was the first U.S. nationwide ground stop since January 2023, when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned, and the second since the aftermath of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks.
Air travel in US returning to normal with stable system: FAA
