# FAA ends nationwide ground stop

> SFO travelers face slow recovery after FAA lifts U.S. flight ground stop.
- Title: FAA ends nationwide ground stop · The San Francisco Standard
- Summary: SFO travelers face slow recovery after FAA lifts U.S. flight ground stop. The FAA ended a daylong U.S.
- Keywords: faa, sfo, ground stop, flight delays, air traffic control, united airlines, san francisco international airport, transportation secretary, sean duffy, air route traffic control centers, smart ai system, The San Francisco Standard
- Source: The San Francisco Standard — https://sfstandard.com/2026/11/13/faa-grounds-flights-nationwide-sfo
- Published: 2026-11-13T21:35:25+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: faa, sfo, ground stop, flight delays, air traffic control, united airlines, san francisco international airport, transportation secretary, sean duffy, air route traffic control centers, smart ai system, news
## FAA lifts nationwide ground stop
The FAA ended a daylong halt to U.S. departures Friday evening after several hours.
## Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warns recovery will be slow
Duffy said the recovery would take time and better movement was expected tomorrow.

> It’s going to take us some time to unwind what happened this afternoon. Hopefully tomorrow we will see better movement.
## Duffy blames aging air traffic control system
Duffy blamed the outage on aging equipment, saying the system was analog and overloaded.

> What we have is a really old air traffic control system. It’s analog. Our switches got overloaded with data and started giving us inconsistency in data. … It was the old hardware that went down.
## SFO travelers face delays into weekend
SFO officials warned travelers to expect delays into the weekend after nearly 5,000 flights were canceled nationwide.
## Air traffic control system malfunction
Controllers had intermittent communication and radar but not a total blackout.

> We did it out of an abundance of caution.
## Possible cyberattack linked to system upgrade
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the problem was caused by upgrade work overwhelming the old system.

> As they were going in putting patches into the system and putting new equipment and technology, it overwhelmed the old system.
## SFO travelers experience delays
Passengers at SFO heard announcements about the ground stop and faced delays into the weekend.
## Travelers rebook flights for weekend
Some travelers rebooked flights for Saturday to avoid weekend delays.

> Hopefully this will be resolved by then.
## SFO domestic flights delayed
SFO domestic Terminal 3 travelers booked hotels and backup flights home to Texas for Saturday.

> If everyone is booking, they might fill up.
## FAA expanded SMART AI system days before
The FAA expanded an AI-driven route-planning tool called SMART to all 22 regional air traffic control centers days before the outage.

> Air space intelligence, the startup behind the software, said the ground stop is not based on or a result of the smart system.
## Key takeaway

The FAA ended a daylong U.S. flight ground stop Friday evening but warned recovery would be slow for SFO travelers.