Thousands of frustrated travelers remained stranded at New York City airports Friday after the Federal Aviation Administration imposed an extremely rare nationwide ground stop that disrupted [1] flights for about four hours. The order was lifted shortly before 8:30 p.m., but the travel mess was far from over.
JUST IN: The FAA ground stop has been lifted after four and a half hours, according to Reuters.
More than 10,000 flights have been disrupted.
Flight disruptions are expected to continue through the weekend. https://t.co/ZcVxYSkrsS
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 14, 2026 [2]
The FAA announced the grounding just before 4 p.m., halting flights across the country and triggering waves of cancellations at major hubs, including LaGuardia and JFK airports. The breakdown began around 3:30 p.m. as air traffic control facilities encountered communication and radar instability.
Those facilities monitor medium and high altitude flight traffic, and the instability snarled travel for millions. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy described inconsistent radar data and communication with aircraft during a White House press briefing.
“We started to have inconsistency in the data from the radars and our communication with airplanes,” Duffy said. He explained that officials issued the ground stop with more than 3,500 airplanes aloft, and all but 400 had landed before the freeze ended at around 8:15 p.m.
Duffy attributed the inconsistencies to the country’s “incredibly old air traffic control system” becoming “overloaded with data.” His blunt assessment put the focus on the old system as flight schedules collapsed nationwide.
WOW: Sean Duffy just did something you NEVER see in Washington. He TOOK THE BLAME.
Duffy says today’s ground stop was NOT THE AIRLINES’ FAULT. He says it was the FAA and a legacy air traffic system that failed.
Radar and communications went in and out. At times, pilots and controllers COULDN’T REACH EACH OTHER AT ALL, and Duffy says that was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.
He says pilots and controllers SAFELY BROUGHT DOWN MORE THAN 3,500 PLANES. Duffy was flying in from Dallas himself when it happened, and he showed up to the briefing in jeans and a jacket.
“I’M HAPPY TO TAKE THE BLAME WHEN IT’S WITH THE FAA.”
That’s accountability. Now Congress needs to do its part and fund the fix.
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) November 14, 2026 [3]
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was “zero evidence” that a cyberattack or another nefarious act caused the problems. He said new equipment and technology appeared to overwhelm the older system while Duffy was putting patches into it, leading Mullin to say the patchwork does not work.
Duffy called on Congress to approve $50 billion in new funding for a “state-of-the-art” air traffic control system. Even with the stop lifted, he cautioned that normal commercial airline operations would not return instantly.
SEC. SEAN DUFFY JUST DROPPED:
“I can’t BUILD THINGS if I DON’T HAVE MONEY!”
“Let’s give the money to fix this very real problem!”
He needs $50 billion for a new FAA air traffic system and Congress should do it NOW.
Put it on the floor this month! https://t.co/kaiT7NrXRx
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 14, 2026 [4]
The transportation secretary said he expected the system to be completely “back up and operational as we come into the heat of travel during Thanksgiving.” For stranded passengers, however, the immediate picture remained grim.
Across the United States, about 26,000 flights were delayed and another 5,000 were canceled before Duffy announced that the stop had ended. At New York City airports, weary travelers quickly ran out of patience.
Hannah, a member of the US Navy, had traveled for 30 hours and was on the final leg of her trip home to Florida after deployment when her LaGuardia flight was canceled. “This was the last step to get home, and it just didn’t work out for us,” she told The Post.
At JFK Airport, Eric Ji, 22, vented after the nationwide shutdown wrecked his rare trip. “I haven’t taken a flight in two years and the one time I take a flight, the entire US gets grounded,” he said.
LaGuardia travelers were told to expect a wait of two to three hours to retrieve checked luggage from canceled flights. A worker said the enormous number of bags requiring sorting was responsible for the long delay.
Hairstylist Sarai Martinez, 42, who had planned to fly home to Boston at 6 p.m., said she was irritated and tired. On the verge of leaving without her luggage, she said she was ready to get into a cab and abandon the bag.
Even after flights were allowed to move again, many passengers at Big Apple airports remained in limbo and criticized the response. Alfred Khan, 55, sat on the floor at Kennedy airport with his bags and said he felt exhausted and abandoned by American Airlines.
Khan said the delay itself was not his central complaint, pointing instead to what he called a lack of compassion from the airline. He said passengers received neither water nor clear communication, while his Miami business trip, rental car and hotel arrangements remained uncertain.
He suggested food vouchers worth $10 would have been a welcome gesture, especially with children and pregnant women among travelers. “Not even a bottle of water and terrible communication,” Khan said, as he remained unsure whether or when he would reach Miami.
Carlos Abarca, 54, had been scheduled to fly to Washington, DC, at 5 p.m. He spent hours seeking a rental car, bus ticket or train ticket, but said those options were unavailable or sold out.
Abarca said he could not trust the airline after the day’s chaos and said the disruption would affect the following day. “Even as an experienced business traveler, I’m stranded in the city that doesn’t sleep,” he said.