Airlines are still scrambling to return operations to normal after the longest and only second nationwide stop of flights in the United States since the attacks of 9/11 in 2001.
More than 5,000 flights were cancelled in the US on Saturday after over 9,000 were scrapped a day earlier as the knock-on effects continued from Friday’s abrupt ground stop. The stoppage was halted after more than four hours on Friday night, but airports and carriers were still grappling with large backlogs and resulting delays.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
The decision to suddenly ground all planes on Friday initially triggered speculation of a cyberattack.
But officials have since ruled that out and named the reason for the weekend disruptions as a routine replacement of the communications routers that connect the US air traffic control system.
Here’s everything we know about what went wrong:
What happened?
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a nationwide ground stop of flights at 3:54pm East Coast time (20:54 GMT) on Friday, citing a telecommunications outage affecting air route traffic control centres.
The outage caused thousands of flights to be cancelled or delayed across the US.
The ground stop was removed at 8:15pm on Friday (01:15 GMT on Saturday), but hundreds of flights were still delayed or cancelled that night, according to the aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Aircraft already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations and land during the ground stop while international flights were handled on a case-by-case basis with some allowed to depart despite the restrictions.
What caused the ground stop?
A routine upgrade was being carried out – maintenance work that ultimately overloaded antiquated equipment and caused “intermittent” communications and radar gaps, leading to the ground stop, US officials said.
L3Harris, a contractor, was replacing a section of the system’s old and discontinued copper wire with new fibre optic lines in a remote location on Friday afternoon, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Saturday.
The router in that location then started overloading the air traffic control system, causing communications disruptions. When officials couldn’t locate the cause of the overload, they grounded flights nationwide.
“When we see that, your safety is paramount. We shut down the airspace,” Duffy said.
The transportation secretary said “contractor error or a faulty piece of equipment” caused the router to start flooding other ones.
“We had 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds,” he told reporters.
The issue affected communications at 17 of the FAA’s 22 en route centres.
The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS), a union representing FAA safety employees, said the issue was isolated to two routers that were updated on Friday. An official told the Reuters news agency it was believed the routers were in Arkansas and Texas.
An FAA official said the agency conducted a safety assessment before the work. The union said PASS-represented technicians were not involved in the upgrades that led to the ground stop.
Ageing technology and equipment alongside a shortage of several thousand controllers have long been concerns plaguing the US air traffic control system.
Duffy on Friday called for $50bn in funding to upgrade these systems, up from his earlier request of $30bn after Congress approved $12.5bn last year.
So it wasn’t a cyberattack?
No.
White House officials had convened an emergency meeting in the Situation Room on Friday amid concerns that the incident was due to a cyberattack. But the US government has since said it did not believe that was the cause.
“Once we were able to isolate the work being done at this location, all of our systems came back online,” Duffy said. “So we don’t believe this was cyber at all.”
The FAA chief reiterated that view at Saturday’s news conference.
“We see zero evidence of anything nefarious and zero evidence of anything AI-related,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said.
Who has been named responsible for the incident?
L3Harris, a US-based aerospace and defence company, is the contractor behind the systems upgrade, the US Department of Transportation said.
Three-fourths of the company’s revenue comes from US government contracts, largely from the military, The New York Times reported.
“What we’re working to determine was whether we had incompetence, meaning was it … installator error from L3Harris? Or did they install a faulty router?” Duffy said. “We haven’t determined what the fault was.”
Duffy added that L3Harris, which he said had performed decades of work for the FAA, “didn’t meet the moment”.
“They own this network. They’re our prime contractor. I can’t go somewhere else. They own it,” he said. “Frankly, we’re going to hold people accountable.”
In response to Duffy’s allegations, L3Harris told Al Jazeera it has been working “in close coordination with the FAA” and safety and reliability are its “highest priorities”.
“We are supporting the FAA in its investigation to understand the conditions that led to the November 13 ground stop of our nation’s air travel,” a spokesperson for the company said.
“L3Harris takes the nationwide ground stop and its impact on travellers, airlines and air traffic operations seriously.”
L3Harris said it has been “modernising” the communications infrastructure supporting the National Airspace System in “close coordination” with the FAA.
It added that it has completed more than 70 percent of the planned airspace communications conversion from legacy copper wires to a fibre optic system.
The FAA said it was doing additional testing with L3Harris to see if there are any further risks.
When will flights in the US be back to normal?
Bedford, the head of the FAA, cautioned that it could take time.
“We have crews and aircraft that are out of position for 12,000 flights that were lost,” Bedford said. “These crews, pilots and flight attendants need to get to their points of reconnection with their schedules.”
He stated that he thinks “the worst is behind us”.
Duffy said airlines were expected to restore their full schedules by Sunday night.
Airlines have issued travel waivers for passengers affected to rebook flights for later dates at no cost.
Tens of thousands of people remain stranded in airports across the country while others have been left to pay surge prices for hotels and rental cars as airlines scramble to resume flights.
With the busiest travel days of the year just ahead, U.S. airports and federal officials today scrambled to restore flights for tens of thousands of travelers grounded by Friday’s historic suspension of air traffic.
“We are back at full operations,” said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy at a Washington D.C. news conference Saturday morning. However, he said, “Games may not happen on time today. People may not get to a wedding. They may not get to a birthday party.”
At LAX at 2:20 p.m., travel website FlightAware reported 85 canceled departures and 110 canceled arrivals, along with 189 delayed departures and 196 delayed arrivals. At Hollywood Burbank Airport, the figures were 12 canceled departures, 11 canceled arrivals, 22 delayed departures and 22 delayed arrivals.
“It’s just going to take some time for things to get back to normal. I don’t have an estimate on that,” said an LAX spokesperson Saturday morning. “The only thing we’re able to recommend is that people check with their airlines before they travel.”
John DiScala, who runs the travel advice website JohnnyJet.com and has a pre-Thanksgiving flight from LAX coming up on Wednesday, said he plans to follow his usual pre-flight routine, which includes having the airline’s app on his phone, having the airline’s number on his phone (in case he needs to rebook in a hurry), checking his seat assignment, showing up at the airport two hours ahead of departure and consulting flighty.com, which tracks airlines, airports and plane locations.
That said, in the absence of another FAA hiccup, “I don’t think there are going to be any problems. The only problems will be if there’s bad weather,” DiScala said. Still, he said, “Be extra kind to TSA, to gate agents and to flight attendants. This is not their mess. They’re just dealing with it like you, and they’re not getting paid any more. That’s why we bring chocolates.”
Nationwide, as of Saturday afternoon, FlightAware reported 5,577 canceled flights within, into or out of the U.S., along with 6,915 delayed flights. Though about 10% of LAX’s departures were canceled Saturday, the airport appeared to be recovering faster than some others. Airports in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, New York and San Francisco were among those with cancellation rates of 17% or higher.
That slowdown follows several hours of grounded flights Friday, when federal officials said more than 9,000 commercial flights were canceled, forcing tens of thousands of travelers into long waits or overnight stays in major airports across the country. Apart from 9/11, the FAA’s only “nationwide ground stop” order — banning takeoffs until further notice — came in 2023. That order, prompted by problems with the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions system, was lifted after about 90 minutes, but affected thousands of flights.
“BAD NEWS: I’m at the airport. GOOD NEWS: I’m in the bar,” Chicago-based poet Patricia Smith wrote on Facebook.
“We’ve landed at LAX. We can’t get a gate because there are no free gates,” said actor Johnny Cannizzaro in an Instagram post. “We’ve got a plane full of cranky passengers…. We have a few crying babies. We have a bit of a nightmare situation going on here.”
“I’ve been stranded at the airport for hours,” author Reyna Grande wrote on Facebook from LAX on Friday. “I may or may not make it out of here tonight for the Texas Book festival tomorrow.” (Two hours later, Grande said she’d miss the festival on Saturday, but was still hoping to be there Sunday.)
Desi Barlett, who lives in Hawaii, was due to fly there from San Diego on Friday, but learned in the “chaotic” San Diego airport that her flight was scrubbed. “It’s a little scary-slash-weird,” she said on Instagram. During the wait, she did exercises and found a massage chair. Later, texting from a Hawaii-bound flight on Saturday, she said, “the whole thing was a mess…Today was much more relaxed.”
For Santa Rosa-based author and cartoonist Stephan Pastis, the mess developed in stages. He was due to fly Alaska Airlines to Spokane for a book-tour event, saw that his flight was canceled and booked an alternative. Then that was canceled, and another.
“They don’t cancel them altogether,” Pastis said via text, still en route to Spokane. “So you have to stay up all night waiting for the alert that your new flight has ALSO been canceled. Nutters.”
Pastis’s event in Spokane was delayed to give him more time to arrive. But the author’s travel challenges are far from over, because he’ll be in transit almost constantly between now and Thanksgiving.
“I have no choice but to endure it,” Pastis said. Nine tour stops in nine days.”
Air travel expert Brian Kelly, also known as The Points Guy, has warned that “it’s going to be a rough weekend at airports. Speaking on Instagram, Kelly said that “it will take days before things are back to ‘normal.’ I highly recommend tracking your flight and opt-in for updates in your airline app.”
One of many events affected by the grounding is Camp Flog Gnaw, a sold-out Saturday-Sunday music festival at Dodger Stadium expected to draw about 50,000 people per day with more than two dozen acts. The gates were set to open at noon Saturday.
“I unfortunately am going to miss the festival because all flights are either canceled or have the longest standbys imaginable,” wrote one Reddit user. “I’m hoping AXS” — the event’s official ticket vendor— “can give some refund back.”
The incident comes as the holiday travel season intensifies. On a typical travel day in mid-November, TSA agents screen roughly 2-2.5 million passengers nationwide. Last year, that figure reached 2.7 million passengers on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and 3.1 million on the Sunday after. As of 9:30 a.m., Friday’s total hadn’t been posted.
At Saturday morning’s news conference in Washington, federal officials said they did not believe cyber-crime or artificial intelligence played any role in Friday’s trouble. Instead, Duffy blamed lagging federal air-traffic technology and pointed to government contractor L3Harris, which owns and operates a communications network crucial to air traffic control. After some communications and radar became unreliable on Friday afternoon, Duffy said, officials traced the trouble to a recently updated communications router.
So far, Duffy said, it’s unclear whether the root problem was human error or a faulty router. Officials said that router was in a “remote” location, but didn’t say where.
When Nan Lehnert of Los Angeles boarded her flight from Burbank to Oakland Saturday morning, “everyone gave a big cheer and applause for the pilots,” she said by text.
Nathan Banks of Portland, who works for TriMet, that city’s public transportation agency, was in San Diego for a conference on transportation scheduling software. When word reached him of the canceled flights, he imagined the transportation professionals trying to sort it out.
“It must be a nightmare,” Banks said.
But for Banks and his wife, Lisa Smillie, it wasn’t so bad. Instead of going to the airport for their scheduled Friday afternoon flight, they rebooked for Saturday on Alaska Airlines, had dinner at a restaurant on Shelter Island and spent the night in a hotel on the water. As of midday, their Saturday afternoon flight was listed as on time.
Sean Duffy, the country’s transportation secretary, said his agency is ‘going to hold people accountable’.
The top United States transportation official has said work being performed on an antiquated telecommunications system could be to blame for a rare, hours-long US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ground stop that halted all air traffic inside the country.
At a news conference in Washington, DC, on Saturday, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy spoke about routine maintenance that was performed on Friday to upgrade a router from copper to fibre at a “very remote location”.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
Duffy said “contractor error or a faulty piece of equipment” caused the router in question to start flooding other ones in the country’s air traffic control system.
“We had 1,000 connection attempts ever four to five seconds,” he told reporters at the Transportation Department.
When those connection issues caused disruption in radar feeds and communications between air traffic controllers and aeroplanes, Duffy said a ground stop was ordered.
“When we see that, your safety is paramount. We shut down the airspace,” he said.
The Transportation Department identified the contractor of Friday’s maintenance as L3Harris, a US-based aerospace and defence company that has been tasked with modernising the communications system for the FAA.
“What we’re working to determine was whether we had incompetence, meaning was it … installator error from L3Harris? Or did they install a faulty router?” Duffy said. “We haven’t determined what the fault was.”
Duffy added that L3Harris, which he said had performed decades of work for the FAA, “didn’t meet the moment”.
“They own this network. They’re our prime contractor. I can’t go somewhere else. They own it,” he said. “Or was it a faulty router? And we’re going to find that out. And frankly, we’re going to hold people accountable.”
Al Jazeera has reached out to L3Harris for comment on the allegations but has not yet heard back.
Amid concerns that Friday’s ground stop was the result of a cyberattack, the US government said Saturday it did not “believe” that was the cause.
“Once we were able to isolate the work being done at this location, all of our systems came back online,” Duffy said. “So, we don’t believe this was cyber at all.”
United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, left, looks on as FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford speaks during a news briefing in Washington, DC, on Saturday [Aaron Schwartz/AFP]
The head of the FAA, who also spoke at Saturday’s news conference, echoed the transportation secretary’s remarks, saying the system outage was caused by an equipment error.
“We see zero evidence of anything nefarious, and zero evidence of anything AI-related,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said.
A root cause analysis would be shared with the public when it is available, he added.
As airlines and thousands of travellers begin the process of digging out from Friday’s groundstop, the longest and only second nationwide stop since 9/11 , the FAA said full schedule integrity is expected by the end of Sunday.
“We have crews and aircraft that are out of position for 12,000 flights that were lost,” Bedford said. “These crews, pilots and flight attendants need to get to their points of reconnection with their schedules.”
Bedford said the FAA expects about 4,000 to 5,000 flights out of the 41,000 scheduled on Saturday to be cancelled.
“That will set us up for a full recovery tomorrow,” he said. “I do think the worst is behind us.”
Friday’s nationwide ground stop that led to the cancellations of thousands of flights into Saturday happened after an update was made to an older communications system used by air traffic controllers and managed by L3Harris Technologies (LHX).
The FAA has made the very rare move of halting all flights across the country. The agency announced that communications issues are to blame.
“The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following communication issues impacting multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers,” the agency said in a statement. “FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide updates.”
The @FAAnews issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers. FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them.
In January 2023, the FAA halted flights because of issues with a pilot alert system. Before that, traffic was halted nationwide after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
It is unclear if the issue was due to an internal glitch or from an external action.
This is a developing story. We will update it as we find out more.
UPDATE: 4:53pm EST —
CNN is reporting that initial indications point to this not being a cyber attack, based on officials that talked to the network. We have to stress this is based on preliminary information from their sources and it could change. CNN writes:
“Preliminary reports indicate this is not a cyberattack, according to two law enforcement officials.FBI personnel across the country are continuing to monitor the situation, according to another law enforcement source.”
There are changes occurring across the FAA’s air traffic control system in attempts to overhaul and modernize it. This includes the use of AI to help improve the efficiency of flights criss-crossing the skies. A report from Arstechnica just yesterday highlighted the wider deployment of AI to air traffic control centers after a successful test period in Washington, D.C. The story states:
“After a successful initial rollout to the National Capital Region in September, the FAA will now use SMART in the airspace of all 22 centers across the country to reduce delays, reduce fuel consumption and improve the travel experience for the flying public,” according to the agency statement posted on November 10.
UPDATE: 5:11PM EST—
The issue appears to be primarily impacting ARTCCs (Air Route Traffic Control Centers). These regional centers coordinate all the movements of flights across the country. This fits with what we are seeing.
The issue seems to be stemming from the ARTCCs. These are, in lamens terms, facilities that manage aircraft traveling between airports and primarily guide pilots along their routes to maintain safe separation between planes.
FAA orders nationwide grounding of passenger planes…
In a presser, Secretary Markwayne Mullin basically says everything is on the table and nothing is ruled out.
From the presser:
Mullin: Just to make sure we understand, there is no indication, and we had no reason to believe as of right now that this was a threat to the United States. This was a telecommunication outage throughout the FAA. Now, out of abundance of caution, we have grounded all the flights, and and all the flights are accounted for as incoming flights, either internationally or the flights that are currently still in the air, we’ll be dealing with those case by case. As you can imagine, there will be a priority list as they start coming in…
…
My understanding is that we can still communicate. It’s just that it’s at different levels in the clarity that we can get to. But there’s redundancy in most communications. So, as you can see, there’s still planes landing, and so there’s still communications going on.
…
It’s going to take some time, and so this isn’t going to just be resolved and turned around within the hour. This is going to take some time. But once again, everybody is safe. The flights are accounted for, and … there should be no fear to the public at all.
..
There’s two areas that we are that we know that are not affected. I don’t think I’m at the ability to share those right now, but there’s two areas inside the United States that are still able to communicate just fine.
…
This isn’t the same comparison to 9/11. That is, that’s a road I won’t go down. But people are making that assumption because it’s a stoppage. Do we know what has caused it yet? No, we’re going to go through it, but I’m not going to make assumptions. As I’ve said multiple times, it’s very difficult to make assumptions. We want to always deal with facts, and we’re going to deal with facts.
UPDATE: 5:48PM EST—
ASI says this issue has nothing to do with their AI deployment at FAA centers:
The current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC.
Some detail as to what Chicago Center experienced:
The cascading shutdown occurred over one hour:
🇺🇸 Last recorded take-offs at selected US airports:
DEN: 13:38 MT ORD: 14:15 CT IAH: 14:39 CT JFK: 15:35 ET EWR: 15:35 ET DCA: 15:35 ET ATL: 15:37 ET MIA: 15:36 ET All times are local. pic.twitter.com/on7uZakTOa
Much still remains to be learned about the circumstances behind the ongoing ground stop. However, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy had been warning about the fragility of the aging telecommunications infrastructure underpinning FAA’s air traffic control system.
“The architecture of our telecom is still a 40-year-old architecture, which means you could have a switch go down and a line be cut yesterday and the Northeast goes down,” Duffy said in September, per a report from Reuters. “These incidents will continue to happen unless we get the resources and actually build the architecture fit for the 21st century.”
Reuters said those comments follow delays and cancellations impacting thousands of flights across the Northeastern United States “due to the dual failures of a circuit at a Philadelphia air traffic facility and the accidental cut of a fiber-optic cable near New Brunswick, New Jersey, by a construction crew.”
UPDATE: 6:40PM EST—
The Wall Street Journal has now reported that “the outage appears to be affecting a telecommunications network overseen by L3Harris Technologies, according to people briefed on the matter.”
“The network handles crucial radio frequencies that air-traffic controllers use to communicate with pilots, the people said,” the Journal’s story added. “It wasn’t immediately clear whether the outage also affected the radar feeds that controllers use to keep aircraft safely separated in the skies.”
“Multiple sources tell @CBSNews that an update to the private communications network that connects America’s air traffic control system caused the system to reboot,” according to a post from that outlet’s Olivia Rinaldi on X. “When the FAA’s telecommunication infrastructure rebooted, it crashed, causing the communications outage. The system is operated by L3Harris.”
NEW: Multiple sources tell @CBSNews that an update to the private communications network that connects America’s air traffic control system caused the system to reboot.
When the FAA’s telecommunication infrastructure rebooted, it crashed, causing the communications outage.…
“The Federal Aviation Administration told airlines the nationwide outages that prompted the ground stop were the result of a problem with network routers, according to an airline source,” according to a separate update from CNN. “The problem is believed to have started at Chicago Midway International Airport and cascaded nationwide.”
“In case you heard otherwise, there is no radar outage and radar.weather.gov is fully operational!” the National Weather Service (NWS) also said in a post on X, but it is unclear if this is related in any way to the issues FAA is experiencing. “Outdated content from isolated webpages stating otherwise has been circulating, but NWS radars are operating normally.”
In case you heard otherwise, there is no radar outage and https://t.co/sKhgAVX4eI is fully operational! Outdated content from isolated webpages stating otherwise has been circulating, but NWS radars are operating normally.
“You may not be able to access products on our webpages, or these products will be old,” that statement had added. “Technicians are actively working to resolve these issues as soon as possible. Local offices continue to issue watches, warnings and forecasts and they are available on some external websites.”
Again, it is not clear if this is related in any way to the issues FAA is experiencing.
UPDATE: 7:32PM EST—
Online flight tracking data shows limited continued departures from various airports despite the ground stop, particularly long-haul flights from the East and West Coasts.
Some international long-haul flights are still managing to operate tonight despite the nationwide ground stop.
Departures are continuing on a limited basis from Northeast and West Coast airports to Europe and Asia. pic.twitter.com/u0rBy8CEMb
FlightAware: Total delays today: 26,097 Total delays within, into, or out of the United States today: 10,243 Total cancellations today: 3,947 Total cancellations within, into, or out of the United States today: 3,288https://t.co/VcdmU0FSIz
CNN has now reported, citing an unnamed airline source, that some carriers might shut down operations, at least overnight, given that it is unclear when the situation may be resolved.
Though the cause of the outages remains unconfirmed, reporting so far continues to point away from any potential attack being responsible. As noted earlier, concerns have been raised in the past about the state of the underlying infrastructure behind the FAA’s air traffic control systems, which is notoriously patched together with a mix of old and new technology.
Don’t underestimate the dodginess of the hodgepodge of rickety/old/mismatched/stitched together systems that make up the air traffic control system when it comes to stuff like this.
Duffy and Mullin held a press conference at the White House to offer the latest explanation about what led to the full ground stop and why it was lifted. The following are highlights.
Duffy on the stop being lifted
“So at 8:15 tonight Eastern time, we opened up the airspace. Now, does that mean every plane is going to fly right now? It’s going to be slow, right? So if you’re watching at an airport, check with your airline.We’re trying to do as many of those as we can tonight, if we have the capacity with crews to move those flights. If not, we’ll start tomorrow morning with our airline partners moving those aircraft. It’s going to take us some time to unwind what’s happened this afternoon.”
Duffy on the funding needed to fix the problem
“This is an emergency. This is an emergency. I want Congress to give us emergency funding. This is bipartisan. This is American. I want $50 billion.”
“Many of our towers are almost 100 years old. Our air traffic controllers have leaky roofs, air conditioning that doesn’t work. They’re high in the air. Their elevators don’t work. Their roofs leak. I want new towers. We should also invest in many of the airports around the country…Let’s get the money. Let’s invest so we never have to come at 8:30 at night and have a press conference on why air travel was shut down, why we have tens of thousands of people in airports separated from their families without any knowledge of where they’re going to sleep tonight.”
Duffy on what went wrong
“So, at 3:36 p.m., we experienced instability for our radar and our communications and our centers and our TRACONs [Terminal Radar Approach Controls] across the country. If you don’t know this, at airports we have towers. The next rung out is a TRACON. After that, we have in-loop centers. The TRACONs and the centers, we started to have inconsistency in the data from the radars and our communication with airplanes. And we have procedures for this. Our pilots are well trained. Our air traffic controllers are well trained, and at that point we issued a ground stop. We had over 3,500 airplanes in the air. They all engaged, and last time [I checked] we had less than 400 in the airspace as they were all coming into safely land. And we navigated it with our well-known procedures that we have when these incidents happen.”
“We’ve got our centers and our TRACONs operational. I don’t want to rule out that we… have nefarious activity here. We were able to deploy fixes to reduce the overloading on our switches. That we’re able to bring the networks back online and our TRACONS and our centers back online, I think our fix gives us a pretty good indication that it was a legacy network problem that went down.”
Mullin on what caused the issues
“So let’s talk about cybersecurity once again. We’re still looking at it. We’re not ruling out anything. What it appears to be right now is as Secretary Duffy and FAA [were] going in and putting patches into the system, they were putting new equipment and new technology, and that new equipment, new technology…was overwhelming the older system, which is why Secretary Duffy made it very clear: the patchwork doesn’t work. We need one complete system. We need someone to come in and build the whole system. Doing it nickeling and diming together does not work. This is what happens when it takes place. That’s why the president has made it very clear we can’t do this. It has to be a complete overhaul of the system, which we estimate to be about $50 billion. However, out of an abundance of caution, we are still going to do everything we can to rule it out. If that changes, we will let you know. But it doesn’t appear right now that this was anything to do but with technology.”
Duffy on SMART system not being the culprit
“So as I mentioned, this is all the old legacy equipment. All of the new equipment that’s been deployed did not go down. Our SMART system, which is a system that we have a feed for the whole airspace, that’s going to help us better manage trajectories of airplanes and better manage weather… But that SMART system isn’t plugged into STARS [Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System] and ERAM [En Route Automation Modernization]. It’s not. This is completely disconnected. And I love that some people have said this would be the root cause…But this is not even plugged in. What this does is gives information from the airspace to a human being and gives them a prompt on how they can better navigate weather or trajectories. Then the human being will actually decide to accept or deny that prompt. So we’re not even tied in. So there was no possible way SMART would have impacted” the system.
Mullin on why he doesn’t believe this was an attack
“There’s nothing completely certain right now. It doesn’t appear that way. We’ve activated our teams. This is what Department of Homeland Security is all about. This is why we’re stood up to have a continuity of government to bring all the resources together in an emergency like this. This is exactly what this is. This is a national emergency. We have all of our assets, be it from DOW to CISA to all of our NOCs [Network Operations Centers], then all the other components we have inside of DHS. NSA is working with us. There is nothing that indicates it yet. Now, when we start looking at cyber threats, cyber attacks typically, some people are going to raise their hand up and say, ‘Hey, we did that.’ There’s no chatter. We haven’t seen any footprints, as you would say, or identifications of people that got into the system. It appears that this was mechanically driven. However, we’re still looking, so we’re not going to rule that out.”
Duffy on Thanksgiving Travel
“So I believe that it’s going to take us some time to get back to capacity, and then get people who were disrupted over the course of the last eight hours to get them back to their destination, so we’re going to have some makeup to do. A lot of my kids are flying next Friday back from college. I imagine that’s when a lot of kids are flying, and everyone starts their Thanksgiving travel, which, by the way, is a very busy time for travelers. I think we’re going to be back up and operational as we come into the heat of travel during Thanksgiving.”
The FAA also issued a statement:
“The safety of the flying public is always the FAA’s highest priority. The FAA lifted the ground stop and some flight departures are resuming. Before clearing flights to resume, we thoroughly tested our systems to confirm they were stable and that operations remain reliable.
Passengers should contact their airlines for flight updates.”
WASHINGTON — For more than four hours, a ground stop of virtually all aircraft in the United States brought unprecedented chaos and delays that are expected to last days.
Here is what we know about what went wrong.
What caused the stop?
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said switches and routers on the Federal Aviation Administration’s analog air traffic control system became overloaded with data, causing inconsistencies in communication with airlines. As a result, the decision was made to shut the system down shortly after 12:30 p.m.
“We have old, old switches, old routers, we use 1980s little copper lines,” he said. “It’s an old system that went down and went down everywhere.”
The ground stop ended around 5:15 p.m. Duffy said the FAA was able to deploy fixes to reduce the overloading and bring its towers and air traffic control facilities known as TRACONs back online.
Duffy said the problem was with the TDM — time-division multiplexing — a dated, still mostly copper-wire technology used to transmit air traffic control voice and radar data. He said there was no evidence to suggest a cyberattack or the involvement of foreign adversaries.
What problems did this cause?
The technological breakdown led to intermittent communication and radar, but not a complete blackout, Duffy said.
“We were able to keep some of those communications going, but when you have issues and you can’t immediately communicate and immediately see where aircraft are at — that’s a risk that we’re unwilling to tolerate,” he said.
What do we know about the technology?
Duffy lambasted the aging infrastructure that the FAA relies on and said that President Trump is pushing for the funding needed to update the equipment.
“None of your networks run on 1980 technology,” he said to the gaggle of reporters at a Friday evening news conference. “You have all got fiber, state-of-the-art, high-speed networks that cover all of your stations, but not the FAA.”
He said the FAA was in the process of upgrading its air traffic control system thanks to $12.5 billion in funding secured through Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, but called on Congress to approve an additional $50 billion to complete the modernization of the system.
“I believe that should be a priority,” he said. “America, Congress, let’s make this system more safe.”
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin noted that the communications failure was caused as the FAA was performing upgrades.
“That new equipment, new technology — It was overwhelming the older system,” he said. “The patchwork doesn’t work. We need one complete system.”
What is the impact?
There were more than 3,500 airplanes flying across America when the decision to close the airspace was made, Duffy said.
Tens of thousands of travelers were left stranded and FEMA was mobilized to ensure lifesaving medication was not being missed by passengers, said Mullin. Some college football teams were left scrambling to find alternative transportation to this weekend’s games.
Duffy said that air traffic control would try to move as many planes as possible Friday night, but noted that this will depend on the availability of flight crews and pilots.
More than 1.5 million passengers face travel disruption as domestic and international airlines warn of knock-on delays.
Published On 14 Nov 202614 Nov 2026
More than 1.5 million air passengers, including sports teams in the NBA, NHL and college football, have faced travel disruption after the United States halted departing flights nationwide for more than four hours, with airlines warning they would take days to recover.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted the ground stop at 8:15pm Eastern time on Friday (01:15 GMT on Saturday), after a telecommunications outage affected the country’s 22 regional air traffic control centres.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
Cirium, an aviation analytics firm, said about 11,000 flights carrying more than 1.5 million passengers were scheduled to depart US airports after 4pm Eastern time (21:00 GMT), and that at least 827 flights had been diverted by 7:05pm on Friday (00:05 am on Saturday).
FlightRadar24 counted more than 4,700 cancellations and 10,000 delays on Friday, with 700 flights already cancelled for Saturday.
Only 336 flights worldwide were in the air bound for the US at the lowest point during the ground stop, FlightRadar24 reported on X.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, centre left, and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, centre right, speak during a news conference in the James Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on November 13, 2026 [Alex Brandon/AP]
Passengers stranded
At Los Angeles airport, Nicholas Erdodi, who had travelled from New Zealand to attend a conference in Chicago, told Al Jazeera’s John Hendren he had spent six hours at the airport after being forced off his plane.
“The challenge is you cannot ask anyone here what to do,” he said. “Lack of information is what bothers me.” He had been rebooked, but was unsure whether his next flight would go.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said it would “take us some time” to restore capacity and that “we’re going to have some makeup to do.”
He acknowledged that tens of thousands of travellers had been stranded, saying he expected operations to be back to normal for the Thanksgiving rush, which begins in less than two weeks.
Sports weekend in chaos
The Associated Press news agency reported that the shutdown left NBA, NHL and college teams stranded, with NFL teams wondering whether they could travel in time for their games.
The Nets were among five NBA teams scheduled to fly on Friday for Saturday games.
There are 14 NHL games set to play Saturday.
The San Jose Sharks were left waiting to fly to Utah, while the Florida Panthers reached St Louis before the stoppage.
The Texas Longhorns had boarded their plane before it was grounded. “We are grounded and waiting to see when we can leave,” a team spokesman said.
If they have to take a bus to Baton Rouge, the trip for Saturday’s 6:30pm kickoff would take about seven hours.
The Washington Huskies’ buses, carrying almost 200 people, had just reached the airport when the order came, The Washington Post reported.
College football teams due for matches had not yet reached their destinations.
The Big 12 conference said it was evaluating possible changes to Saturday’s schedule, and the Southeastern Conference said it was “aware” of the impact on team travel.
Planes are parked at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas during a nationwide ground stop on November 13, 2026 [John Locher/AP]
Airlines and airports
Delta Air Lines said it was “safely resuming operations”, offering flexible rebooking, and warned that repositioning aircraft and crews would take time.
United Airlines said it was resuming a number of Friday night flights.
JetBlue plans to resume on Saturday morning.
Air Canada said operations would return gradually, with disruption likely on Saturday, and Aeromexico was working to resume operations.
In Mexico City, the Benito Juarez International Airport said about 70 flights scheduled for Friday could be affected.
In Canada, Toronto Pearson said flights that did not need to cross US airspace were operating as normal and that it had increased staffing to support affected passengers.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to ground all flights nationwide for several hours Friday threw the sports world into chaos, leaving NBA, NHL and college teams scrambling to reach their destinations in time for games this weekend.
Transportation officials cited “extraordinary circumstances” caused by communications issues at regional air traffic control centers for the stoppage. It left some teams searching for hotel rooms, others rescheduling flights, leagues adjusting start times, and some teams had even taken the extraordinary step of chartering buses rather than waiting for the ground stop to end.
“We’re going to allow for general aviation, those larger movements, to take place as a priority. Smaller movements will take lower priority,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said after the ground stop was lifted Friday night in Washington.
“If you’re talking about football teams moving,” Duffy continued, when asked about the sports landscape, “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.”
Most college football teams playing Saturday travel the day before their game, and the stoppage left many schools — including No. 2 Utah, eighth-ranked Texas and No. 9 Tennessee — at a standstill as they departed for road games. The Utes play at No. 22 Arizona, the Longhorns visit No. 24 Louisiana State, and the Volunteers are traveling to Texas A&M in three of the bigger games of the weekend.
“The Southeastern Conference is aware of the FAA’s nationwide ground stop and the potential impact on team travel,” the league said. “We are in close communication with our member institutions to assess potential disruptions and coordinate appropriate responses.
“The safety and well-being of student-athletes, coaches and team personnel remain our highest priority.”
Texas and Tennessee both returned to their campuses during the ground stoppage. Once it was lifted following more than four hours of uncertainty, the schools began making plans to fly out as soon as possible, allowing them to arrive before game day.
Auburn opted to take a bus to Mississippi State, with the SEC pushing back the Saturday start time from 9 a.m. PST to 1:15 p.m. to give the Tigers a little buffer. Purdue likewise decided to board buses from West Lafayette, Ind., for its game at Iowa.
Other schools affected by the stoppage included Baylor, Washington, Kansas State, Minnesota and No. 19 Mississippi, which said it did not plan on flying to Oklahoma for its game against the Sooners until Saturday morning.
The Big 12 said late Friday that the Kansas-West Virginia game scheduled for 2:30 p.m. PST would be moved up to 12:30 since the Jayhawks arrived in plenty of time. That allowed the league to shift the Arizona State-Central Florida game from 11:30 a.m. PST to 2:30 p.m., giving the Sun Devils an additional three hours after their flight was delayed.
Washington spokesman Kurt Svoboda said the Huskies returned to campus when their flight was grounded, but officials stayed in touch with their Alaska/Hawaiian Airlines partners and the flight crew remained in place. The Huskies ultimately flew out late Friday for their game at Michigan State on Saturday.
Florida State was playing at Pittsburgh on Friday night, while Illinois was visiting fourth-ranked UCLA and No. 14 Houston was visiting Colorado. Those teams were hoping their charter flights home afterward would be unaffected by the upheaval.
It was unclear whether any referees, who typically fly to their assignments the day before, would have trouble reaching their games. The Big Ten said in a statement that all of its officials had arrived for their scheduled assignments Saturday.
Several teams were able to take off before the stoppage began, including all of those traveling in the Atlantic Coast Conference; Missouri, which was flying to top-ranked Georgia; Duke, which was visiting fifth-ranked Miami; and No. 10 Texas Tech, which posted on social media images of its arrival for a game at Oklahoma State.
NFL teams playing Sunday typically travel the day before their games. They were expected to fly as planned on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Nets were among five NBA teams scheduled to fly Friday for games Saturday. They had just boarded the team plane in New Orleans after playing the Pelicans this week when their flight to Memphis was halted in place.
The Detroit Pistons flew earlier in the day to Miami. The Cleveland Cavaliers, Chicago Bulls and Memphis Grizzlies played Friday night and were due to fly afterward.
The Cavaliers played in Miami on Friday night and were scheduled to play the Dallas Mavericks at home on Saturday. Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson said about 90 minutes before tip-off that his team was scrambling to find hotel rooms for Friday night, just in case.
“It’s part of it. You just adapt,” Atkinson said.
There are 14 scheduled games in the NHL on Saturday. The Florida Panthers were among the majority that made it to their destinations before the stoppage began, but the Sharks were left waiting in San José to see whether they would be able to travel to Utah.
JuJu Watkins and her third-ranked USC teammates were trying to get to South Carolina for their game Sunday against the top-ranked Gamecocks. The team had just boarded its flight at Los Angeles International Airport when the ground stop was issued. After a while, the decision was made to deboard passengers, and the team returned to Galen Center.
In soccer, the Utah Royals already were in the Washington, D.C., area ahead of their National Women’s Soccer League semifinal against the Washington Spirit on Saturday. But the Kansas City Current were supposed to depart Friday for their semifinal against Gotham FC on Sunday in New York, and team officials were uncertain when their flight would be allowed to leave.
The U.S. men’s national team’s match against Haiti on Saturday in Miami was unaffected by the ground stop. Both teams and officials already were in town for the first leg of the two-match CONCACAF Nations League quarterfinal series.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has lifted a nationwide ground stop imposed on Friday that halted departing flights, an order it issued citing “extraordinary circumstances and reasons for safety”.
The halt, which grounded thousands of flights across the country, was lifted on Friday evening.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
This was the third nationwide ground stop of all departures since the September 11, 2001, attacks.
“Everybody’s safe,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said, adding that this was not “another 9/11”.
Here is what we know:
What happened?
The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop at 3:54pm Eastern Time (20:54 GMT) on Friday due to a telecommunications outage affecting air route traffic control centres, which handle flights travelling across the country.
The FAA confirmed that the nationwide ground stop had been lifted.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said airspace reopened at 8:15pm ET (01:15 GMT on Saturday), after more than four hours of disruption.
“We’ve opened up the airspace,” Duffy said, warning that flights would not resume immediately.
“It’s going to be slow,” he added, urging passengers to check with their airlines.
Duffy said flights would resume depending on the availability of pilots and flight attendants, with authorities trying to get as many flights moving as possible on Friday night.
Aviation analytics firm Cirium said that after 4pm ET (21:00 GMT) on Friday, about 11,000 flights carrying more than 1.5 million passengers were still scheduled to depart from US airports.
By 7:05pm ET (00:05 GMT on Saturday), at least 827 flights had been diverted, according to Cirium. Of those, 670 returned to their departure airports, while 157 were diverted elsewhere.
Aircraft already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations and land during the ground stop.
During the ground stop, international flights were handled on a case-by-case basis, with some allowed to depart despite the restrictions.
How many flights were affected?
More than 4,700 flights were cancelled and 10,000 delayed on Friday, while another 700 had already been cancelled for Saturday, according to FlightRadar24.
Aviation analysts said it could take days for airlines to restore their schedules.
Reporting from Los Angeles international airport, Al Jazeera’s John Hendren spoke to passenger Nicholas Erdodi, who travelled from New Zealand and was trying to reach Chicago for a conference.
Erdodi said he had been travelling for 16 to 18 hours before spending another six hours at the airport, where passengers had been forced to leave their plane.
“The challenge is you cannot ask anyone here what to do,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Lack of information is what bothers me, I mean, and not to mention find the hotel for the night, not to mention all the cost.”
Erdodi said he had been rebooked but remained uncertain whether his next flight would depart.
“I work in tech, I understand what could be going on, but someone needs to tell us,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter if someone tells us that we don’t know what’s happening, but please just let us know what’s going on,” he added.
What does a nationwide ground stop mean?
A nationwide ground stop temporarily requires departing aircraft to remain on the ground until cleared to take off.
Flights in the air are generally allowed to continue to their destination, but new departures are on strict orders to stay grounded.
The measure is intended to stop any further aircraft from entering the airspace as the authorities deal with the safety issues.
What caused the FAA nationwide ground stop?
The FAA said the ground stop was caused by a telecommunications outage affecting air traffic control systems.
Duffy said the outage was caused by switches and routers that became overloaded with data and went down, adding that the incident did not involve a total loss of communications or radar capabilities.
Todd Curtis, an aviation safety expert and chief executive of AirSafe.com, told Al Jazeera that the failures appeared to be concentrated in the country’s air route traffic control centres.
“There are 21 across the United States, one in Alaska and the other 20 in the lower 48,” he said.
“These are the folks who handle the aircraft that are transiting from one part of the country to the other, and they rely on multiple handoffs between controllers.”
Speaking before Duffy provided further details, Ron Bartsch, a professor of international aviation law at the University of the South Pacific, raised questions about the apparent failure of backup systems.
“The whole aviation community is based on redundancy,” he told Al Jazeera.
“So the fact that a redundant system hasn’t kicked in immediately just raises more questions than what we’ve seen answers to at this stage.”
Mullin said that there was no cyberattack linked to the nationwide ground stop and that the public was never in danger.
Duffy acknowledged that tens of thousands of travellers had been stranded and called for $50bn in upgrades to the nation’s air traffic control system.
When will US flights return to normal?
Duffy said it will “take us some time to get back to capacity”, but he expected operations to be “back up and operational as we come into the heat of travel during Thanksgiving”.
The Thanksgiving travel period, which begins in less than two weeks, is usually one of the busiest times of the year for air travel in the US.
Aviation safety expert Curtis also warned that the disruption could continue affecting passengers even after the technical problems were resolved.
“If it’s fully resolved, it would take more than a day to get back to normal, to reschedule aircraft,” he told Al Jazeera.
He explained that many airlines operate interconnected networks, meaning passengers often have to change planes at major hubs.
“So there could be a bit of a hassle on the part of the airlines trying to figure out how to get everyone to where they have to go,” he said.
Passengers have been advised to check their flight status directly with their airlines, as delays and cancellations might continue.
It was only the second such nationwide stoppage since the immediate aftermath of the al-Qaeda plane hijackings of 11 September 2001.
“This looks like the worst since 9/11, but clearly not on that scale,” Dr Guy Gratton, an associate professor of aviation at Cranfield University, told BBC Verify.
Dr Gratton pointed to a US grounding in 2023 due to a failure in the Notice to Air Missions (Notam) system.
“That lasted 1 hour and 52 minutes, delayed about 9,500 flights and cancelled about 1,300,” he said.
The 2023 outage meant air traffic safety notices could no longer be published, and flights were grounded until that system was restored.
But Friday’s incident lasted longer than the 2023 event.
Thousands of flights across America were delayed, canceled or stuck on the tarmac Friday after the FAA announced a ground stop due to a communications issue with its air traffic control centers.
The sudden announcement left weary travelers scrambling and unsure about when they could make it to their destinations — and what sort of compensation they may be entitled to.
More than 10,000 flights within the United States were delayed and more than 5,000 were canceled as of 4:30 p.m. Friday, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.
Flights that already were in the air when the ground stop began were allowed to continue to their destinations, while all other domestic flights were held on the ground. International flights were being handled on a case-by-case basis, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The cause of the technical issue was unknown and there was no estimated time for resuming domestic flights Friday.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no reason to believe that the telecommunications outage was caused by a foreign or nefarious actor.
Here is what you should know if you are among the travelers affected.
If your flight is stuck on the tarmac
Under U.S. Department of Transportation regulations, all airlines at U.S. airports are required to allow passengers to deplane within three hours of a tarmac delay on domestic flights and within four hours on international flights. A tarmac delay applies to planes awaiting takeoff or planes that have just landed where passengers are unable to get off.
Airlines are generally required to provide water and snacks to passengers within two hours of a tarmac delay. Working toilets and comfortable air cabin temperatures must also be maintained and medical care must be provided if needed.
If your flight is delayed
Passengers are not automatically entitled to financial compensation if their flight is delayed. Passengers do generally have rights to a refund if there is a significant change to their travel plans and they choose not to continue traveling. The Department of Transportation defines this as departing or arriving at least three hours later than scheduled for domestic flights and at least six hours later than scheduled for international flights.
Several airlines have announced flexible travel policies to make it easier for passengers to change flights or receive refunds during the ground stop.
United Airlines released a statement Friday saying it would waive change fees and fare differences for passengers who opt to reschedule their trip for a new flight departing on or before Nov. 20. Passengers affected by the air traffic control outage who cancel or don’t take their trip are entitled to a full refund, the airline said.
Delta Airlines also announced a travel waiver allowing customers affected by the ground stop to change their flight at no extra cost. Alaska Airlines has a flexible travel policy in place allowing refunds for canceled flights and waived fees for certain flight changes.
If your flight is canceled
Passengers are entitled to a full refund if their flights are canceled and they choose not to accept alternative flights, per DOT regulations. Federal law does not require airlines to provide meal or hotel vouchers to passengers when a cancellation is caused by factors outside of an airline’s control.
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a temporary ground stoppage on all flights in the United States.
The stoppage was announced Friday afternoon and impacted flights nationwide, including at Los Angeles International Airport.
“Due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” the FAA advisory read, “all departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice.”
Inbound international flights would be handled “on a case by case basis,” the advisory said.
Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation said on X that “FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them.”
It marks the second full ground stop since 9/11 and it’s unclear how long it will last. The one was in 2023 and caused by technical issues.
At a new luxury yacht club, boats will be outfitted with slatted decks, hulls and portholes, but they won’t be bobbing in a marina. Instead, they will be anchored to the dusty desert floor — in Joshua Tree.
Lucky Find Hospitality, a boutique hotel development and management firm, says the company is less than a year away from breaking ground on Compass Yacht Club, a nautical themed hotel where guests will stay in yachts designed to serve as hotel rooms. These rooms — specifically, 30 two-level luxury yachts and 28 boat houses — will be arranged in a circle around a central clubhouse that will feature a restaurant, bar and swimming pool, all just a five-minute drive from the entrance to the national park.
A rendering of one of the 58 boats that guests could book during their stay.
(Compass Yacht Club)
“You fall asleep in a yacht, wake up in the desert with a view of the mountains, and you’re a few minutes from one of the most beautiful national parks in the country,” said Nick Ovanessoff, managing director of the firm. “It sounds a little crazy, and that’s exactly why we love it.”
The improbable nautical-themed resort has been a long, hard labor of love, said Lucky Find Hospitality’s CEO, Rigel Bitterman. Born in Idyllwild and raised on a sailboat in San Diego, Bitterman grew up camping and rock climbing in Joshua Tree National Park. After helping to launch close to 40 boutique hotel projects around the globe, his company purchased a 23-acre parcel across the highway from Auto Camp in 2023. The team has been working ever since to clear the many geotechnical, biological and cultural hurdles that make developing anything in the high desert so challenging.
“It’s wild how long it takes to get things done out there,” Bitterman said.
A rendering of the interior of a room.
(Compass Yacht Club)
The property was already zoned for commercial use when Lucky Find Hospitality purchased it, but a section of the parcel is in a FEMA flood zone, which meant that the company had to work through the federal government as well as local municipalities to obtain permits and entitlements. Lucky Find has also prioritized environmentally friendly development processes, spending extra time to ensure that the Compass Yacht Club will use minimal water and be constructed of sustainable materials. To cause minimal impact on the environment, the yachts will be built off-site and placed on the desert floor by a massive crane.
Yet another challenge came from the local community, which has historically been hostile to new development. Bitterman has tried to play nice, hosting ongoing quarterly town hall meetings to keep locals abreast of the project and receive feedback from them, but the meetings are inevitably confrontational.
“I’m tarred and feathered every time,” he said.
One community member described the project as “gentrification at its finest” at a town hall last December. Another suggested that Lucky Find Hospitality replace the hotel’s yacht theme with something more appropriate for the desert: spaceships.
It seemed to be a popular idea.
“The whole room started chanting ‘Spaceships, spaceships,’” Bitterman said.
Each luxury yacht will be constructed of sustainable materials.
(Compass Yacht Club)
Despite the expected — and unexpected — challenges, Bitterman is confident the project will move forward. Approval on the final conditional use permit should be coming by the end of the year, which will allow portions of the property to open to the general public in addition to hotel guests. If all goes according to an already elongated schedule, the team will break ground in 2027 and Compass Yacht Club will open by the end of 2030. In the meantime, Lucky Find Hospitality together with its design partner Rad Labs, has a modular yacht hotel room design ready to go.
Over the past 10 years Lucky Find Hospitality has helped launch hotels where guests sleep in yurts, treehouses, glamping tents and Airstreams and. But Bitterman said Compass Yacht Club has been the company’s wildest, hardest and most dear to his heart projects yet.
“It’s partly my origin story, growing up on a boat and always being fascinated by boat design,” he said. “Everything we do is small and unique, but I’ve never been able to bring something to market quite like this.”
CHRISTINE McGuinness left little to the imagination as she stripped off for a bath.
The model, 38, took to her Instagram account to share a video of her enjoying some downtime during a recent hotel stay.
Christine McGuinness almost bares all as she strips naked for bath and seductively drops towel to the groundCredit: InstagramThe model dropped her robe to the floorCredit: Instagram
Christine filmed herself in a robe as she walked towards the mirror in her room at the Meliá White House in London.
She then filled her bathtub with hot water, dropped her robe to the ground and stepped into the bath with her back facing the camera.
Sign up for the Showbiz newsletter
Thank you!
Christine captioned the post: “Solo System Season is going extremely well.
“Enjoying my body, bank and bath on an unapologetic, unavailable and uncompromising level because my solo system needs this on prescription!
WASHINGTON — Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander adults have become more disillusioned with President Trump and Republicans as the Nov. 3 midterm elections approach, according to a new AP-NORC/AAPI Data poll, giving Democrats a substantial edge on major issues like the economy and health care.
About one-quarter of AAPI adults approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president overall. Only about 2 in 10 approve of his performance on the economy, which the vast majority of AAPI adults see as one of the most important issues for the upcoming election.
But although AAPI adults trust Democrats more than Republicans on a wide range of issues, views of the Democratic Party itself are still split.
Rebecca Larocco, a 45-year-old Korean American in Corning, Iowa, voted for Trump in 2016 and is leaning Republican in the midterm elections. She approves of his immigration policies but is unsure about Trump’s handling of the economy as the Iran war continues to compound gas prices.
“Where I’m at, it’s went up almost $1.50 (a gallon),” she said. “I didn’t expect to go into war at all, that has been definitely unexpected and I’m not sure… I’m just hoping they’ll do what they’re saying and get our economy back on track, get immigration and crime lowered.”
The economy is a top issue for AAPI adults
The economy remains top of mind for an overwhelming majority of the AAPI adult population when they consider the midterms. With the ongoing Iran war affecting gas prices and other costs staying elevated, Americans overall are deeply pessimistic about the state of the economy and see it as a high priority for the midterms. That includes AAPI adults — according to the poll, about 9 in 10 rank the economy as one of the most important issues for the upcoming election, and about 8 in 10 say this about the cost of living.
The economy, the cost of living and healthcare dwarf other issues for AAPI adults. About 7 in 10 AAPI adults say healthcare is one of the most important issues for the election, while only about half say this about foreign policy, crime, immigration, election fairness or climate change.
At the same time, Trump’s economic approval among AAPI adults has dropped about 10 percentage points over the course of the year, and there are other signs his popularity has waned with this group. In late 2024, just after the election, about 4 in 10 AAPI adults had a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of Trump. That’s fallen to about 3 in 10 now.
“What the data show is that any gains that he made not only during the 2024 election — there was a bit of a honeymoon period that Trump enjoyed after the election before Inauguration Day — that has now largely disappeared,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, founder and executive director of AAPI Data.
Len Takahashi, 57, of Universal City, Texas, describes himself as conservative but voted for Democrats in the last three presidential elections and for Republicans in midterm elections. For this midterm election, he is simply open to candidates who prioritize the economy.
“I would like policies that look in the best interest of the American public,” said Takahashi, who is Japanese American. “That could be bringing down spending, a balanced budget of U.S. spending, bringing down inflation, working towards a more stable economy and, lastly, just a better atmosphere between the far left and far right.”
AAPIs trust Democrats more on most issues but are not entirely sold on the party
Democrats have gained at Republicans’ expense since Trump returned to the White House when it comes to AAPI adults’ trust in handling many key issues.
In a March 2025 poll, AAPI adults were evenly divided over which political party would better handle the economy and immigration. Now, Democrats have a roughly 20-percentage-point advantage on both issues.
Meanwhile, around two-thirds of AAPI adults have a “somewhat” or “very” unfavorable view of the GOP. Only about one-quarter have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view.
But while trust in the Democrats on specific issues has increased, AAPI adults are ambivalent about the party as a whole. About half, 48%, of AAPI adults have a “somewhat” or “very” unfavorable impression of the Democratic Party, while 44% have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable impression.
A separate AP-NORC survey of registered voters in September found, similarly, that while voters in general are deeply dissatisfied with Trump and the GOP, few think either party is capable of solving important problems.
Louise Rider, 40, is a Democrat living in Chicago. She believes Democrats are better than Republicans across all issues but says she’s unhappy with how the party has governed.
“I don’t think the Democrats are doing great, I think they need a lot of change as a party,” she said. “It’s kind of a helpless feeling, that nothing will get done with both parties unless there’s major changes.”
Some Republicans still stand behind Trump. James Finley, 74, of Lenox, Massachusetts, said Trump deserves some understanding because he cannot bring down high prices overnight. When it comes to Republicans in general, Finley is a little more critical.
“They’ve had the majority for a couple of years,” said Finley, whose ancestry includes Japanese heritage. “I think they could have done a little bit more or maybe a lot more in terms of passing certain things that I wanted to pass.”
Still, he sticks to the party line and because “all I ever hear from Democrats is to get Trump,” Finley said.
AAPIs concerned about fair midterm elections
As the election approaches, many AAPI adults are worried about problems with misinformation, legal challenges to the results, and voter suppression. About half of AAPI adults say it’s a “major problem” in U.S. elections that people who are eligible are not allowed to vote, while about two-thirds see foreign government attempts to influence results as a “major” problem.
Looking ahead to the November election, about half of AAPI adults are “extremely” or “very” concerned about fake or false information about the candidates, and about half also feel this way about legal challenges to the election results.
Finley is unsure if the voting process can be tightly monitored to prevent undocumented or unregistered people from attempting to vote.
But Takahashi, the conservative from Texas, is worried that Trump will try to manipulate the election.
He’s concerned, he said, that Trump would amplify claims of “fraud in the election system” should the midterms not go in his favor. “(He’ll) make that a point to distract the American public,” he said.
Tang, Jiang and Sanders write for the Associated Press. Tang reported from Phoenix and Jiang from New York. The poll of 1,023 U.S. adults who are Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander was conducted Sept. 8-15, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based Amplify AAPI Panel, designed to be representative of the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is ±4.7 percentage points. This poll is part of an ongoing project exploring the views of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, which are usually not highlighted in other surveys because of small sample sizes and lack of linguistic representation.
