Hundreds of US flights cancelled due to outage

Hundreds of flights from US east coast airports were cancelled or delayed Monday due to a telecommunications line outage caused by a construction mistake, US officials said.

New York's John F Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport were among several airports affected by "ground stops" late on Monday (local time) following an equipment outage at the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), disrupting flights across the Northeast.

"Ground stops" are flights to airports held on the ground at their origin.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X that around 1900 GMT, flights were resuming at LaGuardia Airport and Philadelphia, while flights into Newark and JFK Airports were paused.

"An Amtrak construction crew accidentally cut into a fiber line in New Jersey which caused a telecom outage and forced FAA to pause flights in the Northeast," Duffy said.

Amtrak is the US passenger train company.

Around 1900 GMT, Newark Airport, a key New York City-area hub, had 168 flights canceled and 97 delayed, while Philadelphia had 63 canceled flights and 189 delays, according to FlightAware.

Monday's airport disruption stemmed from two problems, according to Bryan Bedford, head of the Federal Aviation Administration.

After identifying an outage in the primary telecom line, "we discovered that the backup fiber had a break," Bedford said following a briefing to reporters on new air traffic technologies.

Bedford described the rupture on the backup line as "massive" due to the construction mistake.

He said he expected the primary system to be restored by early afternoon but estimated that repairing the backup line would need 13 hours.

According to flight-tracking service Flightradar24, JFK and LaGuardia were added to the list of airports where flights bound for the facilities were being held at their origin airports.

“New York airports JFK and La Guardia have now been added to the list of airports ground stopped (flights to those airports are held on the ground at their origin) due to the FAA equipment outage,” Flightradar24 said in a post on X.

The service said the airports affected included JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Teterboro and Philadelphia, along with Westchester County Airport.

In a latest update, it was reported that Arrivals had resumed at Newark airport while certain other flights continued to be diverted. 

"Arrivals have just resumed at Newark. No commercial flights landed at EWR between 09:38 and 17:22 local time today," Flightradar24 posted.  

Flightradar24 also reported significant disruption at Newark.

“Through 17:30 EDT, 107 diversions away from Newark (EWR) to 34 separate airports impacting 25 airlines. IAD (19) & JFK (12) took in the greatest number of flights. United (with its EWR hub) was most impacted with 70 diversions,” it said.

The New York Post reported that the disruption was linked to two equipment failures and affected more than half a dozen airports across the Northeast for much of Monday.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said a circuit failure at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control facility resulted in the loss of radio and radar equipment serving several airports, including JFK, LaGuardia and Newark.

The FAA said Philadelphia, Teterboro and Westchester County airports were also affected.

The outage began around 10 am and resulted in more than 1,000 flight delays or cancellations, according to the report, as New York prepared to host world leaders and ministers for the 81st United Nations General Assembly.

The disruption was compounded after officials discovered that a newly installed fibre-optic backup system in New Jersey had been damaged during construction work.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a fibre-optic line was cut during work near an Amtrak rail line, affecting Verizon communication lines.

By 6 pm, Duffy said the telecommunications lines had been repaired and airport operations were resuming, though residual delays were expected.