The Federal Aviation Administration ordered ground stops and delays at major US East Coast airports on Monday after a communications outage hit the Philadelphia-area TRACON facility, disrupting traffic across the Northeast corridor. Newark Liberty, LaGuardia, JFK, Philadelphia International, Boston Logan and Teterboro were affected in stages, with thousands of flights delayed or cancelled as the FAA paused arrivals to maintain safe separation.
The outage was linked to a telecommunications failure, with reports pointing to a cut fibre line in New Jersey during construction work as the likely trigger. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy later said the telecom lines had been repaired and operations were resuming, but the disruption continued longer at Newark and some other airports than at LaGuardia and Boston.
The incident began in the morning and spread quickly through one of the busiest US airspace corridors, producing diversions and cascading delays during the busy UN General Assembly arrival period in New York. Flight tracking data showed roughly 7,000 flights delayed or cancelled overall, including about 1,400 at the three major New York-area airports.