A Federal Aviation Administration ground stop halted all flights nationwide for several hours Friday, citing communications issues at regional air traffic control centers. The stoppage, the first of its kind since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, left thousands of flights delayed and threw travel plans for professional and college sports teams into chaos ahead of weekend games.
At Harry Reid International Airport, departing flights showed hours-long delays and security wait times of several minutes. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the ground stop was lifted just after 5:30 p.m. local time, but warned that restoring normal air traffic would be slow. Airport officials attributed the stop to an equipment outage and urged passengers to check with their airlines before heading to the airport.
The disruption affected numerous college football teams traveling for Saturday games, including No. 2 Utah, No. 8 Texas and No. 9 Tennessee. Some programs, including Auburn and Purdue, resorted to chartering buses to reach their destinations. The SEC, Big 12 and Mountain West conferences said they were monitoring the situation and evaluating potential schedule changes. UNLV's football team, en route to New Mexico for a Saturday game, was also caught in the stoppage.
Duffy encouraged football teams with charter flights to coordinate with the FAA to prioritize their departures. "If you're talking about football teams moving, many of those are charters, and there's a lot of individuals on those charter planes, so I would encourage those football teams to reach out to the FAA to schedule those flight times, so they can move and make sure we have games going off tomorrow," he said. The Seattle Seahawks, scheduled to play the Raiders on Sunday, were not due to fly to Las Vegas until Saturday, while the Nashville Predators were already in town for Friday's Golden Knights game at T-Mobile Arena.
Sources: Las Vegas Sun, FOX5 Vegas
Original reporting: 8 News Now →
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