Duffy Says ‘Operations Are Slowly Returning to Normal’ After FAA Grounded Flights

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy provided an update Saturday morning after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a ground stop of all flights in the U.S. Friday evening, stating that “operations are slowly returning to normal.”

In a post on X, Duffy explained that the administration is “in close coordination with the airlines to support the ongoing recovery,” while noting that people will “continue to see some delays and cancellations.”

“Here’s the latest: Operations are slowly returning to normal this morning,” Duffy wrote. “Planes are pushing back, taxiing, and taking off, and it is safe to fly. We are in close coordination with the airlines to support the ongoing recovery.”

Duffy noted that the “top priority right now is making sure travelers get home safely to their families.”

“To our air traffic controllers, pilots, and flight crews who are working around the clock: the nation thanks you for your professionalism and dedication to the flying public,” Duffy continued.

Hours after the FAA issued a ground stop of flights in the nation, Duffy and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin held a press conference where Duffy explained that “routers actually got overloaded with data.”

“We have TDM telecom. So, this is analog telecom,” Duffy explained. “Our switches, our routers actually got overloaded with data, and they went down. I shouldn’t say they went down. They started to give us inconsistency in the data from those routers, and because of that we shut the system down.”

During the press conference, Duffy also explained that while he and President Donald Trump had asked for $30 billion to update the air traffic control system, Duffy was now asking for $50 billion.

As a result of the grounding of flights, roughly 1.5 million passengers were affected, CNBC reported. During the flight ground stop, roughly 600 flights were “diverted.”

“There were 11,000 flights scheduled to depart U.S. airports after 4 p.m. ET on Friday, according to flight-data firm Cirium, with 1.5 million passengers. There were about 600 diverted flights on Friday, 104 of them sent to other airports, Cirium said,” CNBC noted.