The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted a nationwide ground stop late Friday, 14 November 2025, that had halted departures at airports across the United States following a communications failure — but airlines warned that disruptions and cancellations would continue even after the order was rescinded.

What Happened

The FAA Command Center issued a nationwide ground stop at 3:53 p.m. Eastern Time, after a telecommunications outage affected air traffic control operations. The initial advisory, signed at 3:54 p.m. Eastern, cited a communications failure as the reason for the restrictions. A ground stop holds aircraft at their departure airports rather than ordering airborne planes to land — but lifting it does not immediately restore normal schedules.

The FAA later issued a cancellation advisory stating: 'The FAA Command Center nationwide ground stop has been cancelled.' However, the notice did not specify the root cause of the failure or confirm that airline schedules had returned to normal.

Airlines Warn of Continued Disruption

American Airlines said some flights from certain airports were beginning to receive clearance to depart, but noted that most departures had remained paused at the time of its update. The carrier warned of further disruption, including unavoidable cancellations, and advised passengers to check their flight status and review its travel alert for rebooking options. American's warning was issued before the FAA's cancellation advisory came through.

Air India also flagged possible disruption to its flights operating to and from the United States, urging passengers to verify the latest status of their flights before proceeding to the airport.

Government Response and Security Assessment

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters that officials had moved as a precaution following the telecommunications outage. 'There is no indication as of yet that this was a nefarious attack,' Mullin said, though he noted that the preliminary assessment did not definitively rule out a cyberattack.

Earlier in the evening, the FAA's Air Traffic Control System Command Center had confirmed the ground stop remained in effect across a large portion of the country, with some coastal facilities permitted to release international departures on a case-by-case basis. The FAA separately noted that inbound international flights would be managed individually under the initial order.

Scope and Impact

A nationwide ground stop of this scale is an unusual event in US aviation. Aircraft already airborne at the time of the order were permitted to continue to their destinations. The scale of the disruption — affecting departures from coast to coast — drew comparisons to past system-wide FAA outages, including the NOTAM system failure in January 2023 that grounded thousands of flights. This incident underscores ongoing concerns about the resilience of the FAA's ageing air traffic control infrastructure.

As of late Friday, the full extent of cancellations and delays had not been confirmed, and airlines were still assessing the operational impact across their networks.