Duffy Asks Congress for $50 Billion in Emergency Air Traffic Control Funding as FAA Ground Stop Diverted 827 Flights

Since the FAA halted all U.S. departures on Friday, Nov. 13, and lifted the order at 8:15 p.m. ET, the outline of the damage and the price tag Washington wants attached to the fix have come into focus.

Duffy said the telecommunications problems began at FAA facilities and terminal radar approach control facilities across the country at 3:36 p.m. ET. The agency halted departures "out of an abundance of caution," he said.

More than 3,500 planes were airborne when the stop was issued. Duffy said pilots and controllers followed established procedures and cut that number to fewer than 400 by 8 p.m. ET.

"The FAA confirms they did not lose all radar or telecom," Duffy wrote on X.

The $50 billion ask

At a White House briefing, Duffy blamed outdated switches and routers for the communications and radar instability. He said piecemeal repairs are no longer enough.

"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," Duffy said.

He said the Trump administration has already secured $12.5 billion toward modernization. Congress has not yet responded to the request.

The diagnosis is Duffy's. Technicians were still investigating the outage on Friday evening, and no final technical cause has been announced.

The scale of the disruption

Cirium data shows at least 827 flights were diverted by 7:05 p.m. ET. Of those, 670 aircraft returned to their original airports and 157 were redirected to other destinations.

An analysis cited by CNN estimated 1.5 million passengers were affected. That figure is an estimate, not an official count.

An airline source told CNN that a problem with network routers cascaded nationwide. The outage hit the 22 regional air traffic control centers that direct aircraft between airports.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication of a deliberate attack or a cyberattack, and that the ground stop did not constitute a national security threat.

The Times of India reported that officials are also examining whether the outage had any connection to the FAA's rollout of a new artificial intelligence system. That system runs from a single location near Washington and provides recommendations to control centers. No cause has been tied to it.

The last comparable nationwide halt came in January 2023, when an FAA computer system malfunctioned.

The FAA allowed medical evacuation, lifesaving cargo and law enforcement flights to continue during the stop, Duffy said.

Airlines start the reset

Delta said flights have started departing but that "it will take time to reset our operation, including the positioning of aircraft and crews." The airline is offering flexible changes at no extra cost and will automatically rebook passengers whose flights are canceled.

JetBlue canceled all remaining domestic flights for Friday, with exceptions for Europe-bound departures from New York's JFK and Boston.

Air Canada canceled all flights to and from the United States for the rest of Friday evening. The airline warned that Canada-Caribbean and Canada-South America flights crossing U.S. airspace could also be affected.

At LaGuardia, American Airlines employees told Fox News that no American flights had departed yet. Southwest employees said they expected all flights to be canceled, though no official airline announcement confirmed that.

Stranded travelers wanted answers

Passengers described confusion about how long the stop would last. At the Las Vegas airport, one airline staffer told fliers eight hours and another said 24, according to AFP. Some were told their delays were due to wind.

Joseph Anderson, a 72-year-old retired Air Force veteran, was trying to get from Las Vegas to Oakland with his checked luggage stuck. "I would hope the communication can be better from the FAA," he said.

At LAX, Zack Richeimer, 29, scrambled to reach San Francisco after his flight collapsed. His backup plan was a friend's couch.

At Burbank, passengers on an arriving flight sat on the tarmac for about an hour and a half because no gate was open, passenger Logan Brown said.

At Ontario International, traveler Kelley Olson said, "They're not saying what happened."

The disruption comes less than two weeks before Thanksgiving, the busiest travel stretch of the year.

Delta and other carriers have warned that normal operations will take time to return, and Saturday rebookings are already filling. The open questions are what technicians find as the root cause of the router and switch failure, and whether Congress moves on Duffy's $50 billion request before the holiday rush.