Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said airport disruptions nationwide could be resolved by Sunday evening, or by Monday night at the latest.
His comments followed a sudden nationwide ground stop on Friday that suspended departures across the United States for nearly four and a half hours, stranding travelers and leaving airports struggling to clear the resulting backlog.
Appearing on several Sunday morning programs, including Face the Nation, Duffy said the disruption should be over by the “end of today, end of tomorrow.”
“As we look to the end of the day and into tomorrow, we should be running at full capacity,” Duffy added.
More than 1.5 million passengers have meanwhile been affected, while thousands of flights were canceled as airlines and airports dealt with what officials described as the worst aviation crisis since 9/11.
Passengers have slept in airport terminals and rushed to rearrange their travel plans after more than 8,400 US flights were canceled and 14,700 were delayed over Saturday and Sunday, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware.
Duffy said Saturday that contractor L3Harris had been replacing outdated technology at a “remote location” when the air traffic control communications failure began.
He said a contractor was carrying out maintenance at at least one of four remote Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sites, switching communications lines from aging copper wire to fiber before the system went offline.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said airport delays nationwide could end as soon as Sunday evening, or Monday night at the latest
Duffy spoke after more than 1.5 million passengers were stranded by a nationwide ground stop linked to a technology upgrade
Passengers slept in airports and scrambled to change their plans as airlines and airports confronted the worst aviation crisis since 9/11
He described L3Harris as the department’s “legacy provider” and accused the contractor of failing to “meet the moment,” resulting in the outage.
The ground stop started at 3:54 p.m. ET and ended at 8:15 p.m. ET, lasting four hours and 21 minutes.
The FAA said at the time: “There has been a temporary telecommunications outage — out of an abundance of caution, all flights have been halted.
“Every flight has been accounted for, and international flights will be handled on a case-by-case basis.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no evidence of deliberate interference.
“There was no indication as of yet that this was a nefarious attack against us,” he said, while adding, “we’re not ruling out anything at this point.”
Duffy later said the replacement of an old copper wire with fiber caused other routers to become overloaded and disrupted radar feeds, making communication between air traffic controllers difficult.
He again said officials did not believe the incident was the result of a cyberattack and said communications were restored after the problem was identified at the FAA’s remote facility.
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The stoppage lasted four hours and 21 minutes, contributing to 8,400 US flight cancellations and 14,700 delays across Saturday and Sunday
President Donald Trump blamed the aging US air traffic control system and former President Joe Biden for the crisis in a Sunday statement
Duffy used the outage to renew his call for greater FAA funding. He said the air traffic control system still relies on equipment dating from the 1970s and 1980s and urged Congress to approve approximately $50 billion to modernize the nation’s aviation infrastructure.
He said Friday: “What we have is an incredibly old air traffic control system. Give us the money to fix it.”
President Trump also criticized the US air traffic control system Sunday, blaming former President Joe Biden and outdated infrastructure for the disruption.
“If Congress approves the desperately needed money for Air Traffic Control, we can get it built quickly and efficiently,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday morning.
“It will be the BEST SYSTEM anywhere in the world. Much of our current air control system is 50 years old — RIDICULOUS!
“We have already started the work, but it should be done all at once, not in drips and drabs. Congress must approve. The Biden Administration set it back years!”
Duffy said L3Harris owns the telecommunications system used by the FAA. He said he would rather work with telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Verizon but was “stuck” with L3Harris until the agency receives additional funding.
“Many of our contractors, many of our partners, they take our money and they provide really poor service to us, full stop. And we have demanded more,” Duffy said.
Duffy said the disruption began when an old copper wire was replaced with fiber, overloading routers and interrupting radar feeds
FAA Chief Bryan Bedford, left, and Sean Duffy, right, said flights were expected to return to normal by the end of Sunday
“We need L3Harris, or whoever provided that router to us, to do a better job.”
L3Harris is a technology distributor that holds contracts with several US government agencies. Earlier this year, the company announced a proposed partnership with the Department of War to manufacture rocket motors used in US and allied missiles.
The company told Our News Outlet in a statement that it had been “modernizing the communications infrastructure supporting the National Airspace System in close coordination with the FAA.”
“With safety and reliability as our highest priorities, L3Harris, together with its telco partners and the FAA, has completed more than 70% of the planned airspace communications conversion from legacy copper wires to a fiber optic system,” the statement continued.
“We are supporting the FAA in its investigation to understand the conditions that led to the Nov. 13 ground stop of our nation’s air travel. L3Harris takes the nationwide ground stop and its impact on travelers, airlines and air traffic operations seriously.”
Echoing Duffy’s Sunday forecast, FAA Chief Bryan Bedford said Saturday that cancellations and delays would continue through the weekend but that flights were expected to operate normally by the end of Sunday.
Friday’s stoppage was the first nationwide flight halt since January 11, 2023, when a critical FAA computer system failed, and only the second since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
