An American Airlines jet took off from Texarkana Regional Airport at 6:46 a.m. Saturday, the first airline departure from Texarkana since the Federal Aviation Administration halted takeoffs across the country Friday afternoon.
American Flight 3579 to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport was scheduled to leave at 6 a.m. TXK Today’s aircraft tracking receiver, which logs takeoffs and landings at the airport, recorded the Embraer 175 climbing out from Runway 13 at 6:46 a.m., 46 minutes late.
The airport’s online flight board listed the afternoon round trip, Flight 4066, as on time, arriving from DFW at 2:12 p.m. and leaving again at 2:42 p.m.
The FAA lifted the nationwide ground stop at 7:15 p.m. Central on Friday, more than four hours after it halted departures, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a briefing Friday night.
“At 8:15 tonight, Eastern time, we’ve opened up the airspace,” Duffy said.
In Texarkana, Friday’s afternoon flight to DFW sat at the gate for hours and never left. ADS-B Exchange data shows the jet, tail number N204NN, landed from DFW at 1:59 p.m. Friday as Flight 4066 and did not move again until it left as Saturday’s Flight 3579, more than 16 hours later. The last arrival of the night, American Flight 3796 from DFW, was canceled.
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Expect a slow Saturday
Flights are moving, but the system is not back to normal. Airlines canceled 9,159 flights within, into or out of the United States on Friday and delayed 7,152 more, according to the flight tracking service FlightAware, and planes and crews ended the night out of position.
DFW, the only destination served from Texarkana, was among the hardest hit. FlightAware counted 436 canceled departures there Friday, 37% of the airport’s schedule, along with 344 canceled arrivals. American canceled 1,239 flights, about a third of its schedule.
The cancellations carried into Saturday. As of about 7 a.m., FlightAware listed more than 3,500 canceled U.S. flights for the day.
“It’s going to take us some time to unwind what’s happened this afternoon,” Duffy said. He said he hoped to see “far better movement” on Saturday.
American Airlines said in a statement Friday night that it was “prioritizing flights to non-hub cities, as well as international flying, to position aircraft and crew where they are needed.” Texarkana is one of those non-hub cities.
“We expect residual delays and cancellations tonight and into tomorrow,” the airline said. American has issued a travel alert that lets affected customers change their plans at no charge or request a refund.
What caused it
Duffy blamed aging equipment. He said radar and communications at air traffic facilities across the country became unstable at 2:36 p.m. Central on Friday, with more than 3,500 planes in the air.
“Our switches, our routers actually got overloaded with data and they went down,” Duffy said. He said the equipment began returning inconsistent data. “And because of that, we shut the system down.”
The FAA’s newer equipment kept working, he said. “It’s the old hardware that went down.”
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said investigators had found no sign of an attack. “So far what we’ve seen, there is actually no cyberattack,” Mullin said, adding that “there’s nothing completely certain right now.” He also said the outage was not connected to a separate Microsoft outage.
Duffy used the briefing to press Congress for money to replace the system. “This is an emergency,” he said. “I want Congress to give us emergency funding.”
If you are flying this weekend
- Check your flight with American before you leave for the airport, at aa.com, in the American app or at 800-433-7300. A flight listed as on time in the morning can change.
- Texarkana Regional posts live arrivals and departures at flytxk.com. The airport’s main number is 870-774-2171.
- If your Friday flight was canceled, look for a rebooking in the American app first. It usually offers new flights faster than the counter does.
- Connecting through DFW? Leave extra time. A late inbound plane or crew can delay a flight even when the weather is clear.
- Picking someone up? Confirm the flight actually left its origin before you head out.