UK airports face major disruption as United States grounds all flights - The Independent

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today.

Air travellers using UK airports are facing widespread disruption following a complete grounding of departures across the United States.

America's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a nationwide order halting flights "due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety".

The knock-on effects are already being felt in Britain, where British Airways cancelled a New York-bound service that had been scheduled to depart London Heathrow at 10.30pm on Friday.

Meanwhile, a Manchester Airport representative stated that three Saturday morning flights heading to the US – all operated by Virgin Atlantic – could face disruption unless the situation is rectified quickly.

A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson said: "We’re aware of the ground stop order issued by the Federal Aviation Administration for all US airports.

"We’re closely monitoring the situation and assessing any impact to our flights. We advise any customers due to travel to check their flight status at virginatlantic.com."

US transportation secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the FAA is currently looking into a communications failure that impacted regional air traffic control facilities, as reported by the Associated Press.

A nationwide freeze on American flights of this scale has only occurred once before since the September 11 terror attacks in 2001.

Flights were previously halted nationwide by the FAA in January 2023 following a system error.

Reassuring the public, US homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin said: "There is no reason for the public to be afraid or scared for your loved ones. This isn’t another 9/11… This is a telecommunications outage.

"Throughout FAA, out of abundant of caution, we have grounded all the flights, and all the flights are accounted for.

"As incoming flights, either internationally or the flights that are currently still in the air, we’ll be dealing with those case by case.

"As you can imagine, there will be a priority list as they start coming in."

He added: "Everybody is safe. There is no reason to be concerned about your loved ones if they’re flying or anything like that. I just want to make sure everybody’s at ease about that."

He went on: "There is no indication as of yet that this was a nefarious attack against us. It’s just a telecommunication outage as of right now."

A spokesperson for American Airlines said: "The FAA has temporarily paused departures nationwide.

"Flights already in the air can continue to their destinations.

"We expect disruption to our schedule for the rest of the day, depending on the length of the FAA’s nationwide ground stop.

"It will be all hands-on deck across American to get customers on their way as soon as possible when the FAA lifts this ground stop."