Airport chaos continues after US ground stop lifted – as it happened

This blog is now closed. See our full reports: US aviation agency lifts nationwide ground stop affecting all air travel Chaos at US airports as flight stoppage grinds travel plans to a halt Sign up for the Breaking News US email We’re wrapping up this live coverage of the US grou

This blog is now closed. See our full reports: US aviation agency lifts nationwide ground stop affecting all air travel Chaos at US airports as flight stoppage grinds travel plans to a halt Sign up for the Breaking News US email We’re wrapping up this live coverage of the US ground stop and travel chaos that followed – it’s just passed 12.50am in Washington DC. You can read a full report here , and below’s a rundown on what happened.

Thanks for being with us. The Federal Aviation Administration declared a nationwide ground stop on Friday afternoon, throwing airports into sudden chaos , after a communications failure at air traffic control centres. The order was later lifted , with transportation secretary Sean Duffy saying US airspace reopened at 8.15pm Eastern ⁠Time (0115 GMT).

But he warned that departures would ⁠resume gradually and it would take ​time for airlines to restore normal operations. “It’s going to be slow.” More than 6,600 flights were cancelled and 8,600 delayed , with another 1,500 already cancelled for Sunday, according to FlightRadar24. Aviation analysts said the four-hour nationwide grounding could disrupt airline ⁠schedules for days.

It was the longest flight shutdown since the attacks of September 11 2001. US airlines including American, United and Southwest begun resuming flights on Friday night. “ Thank you for your understanding as we work as quickly as possible to fully restore normal operations,” Delta said.

Duffy said the federal government has “identified the problem” that brought down the US air traffic control system on Friday and the system “is operational right now”. The immediate problem had been fixed and that flying was safe, he said, but warned that a broader overhaul of the aging air traffic control system was needed to prevent similar failures. Duffy blamed Congress for failing to fund a new system that he said could prevent such outages, and called for $50bn to modernize it.

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