Telecom Outage Grounds Flights at Dallas Airports
A telecom outage led to significant flight disruptions at Dallas-Fort Worth and Dallas Love Field airports. Over 1,800 flights were delayed and hundreds canceled as the FAA implemented ground stops. The outage, not involving FAA equipment, severely impacted airlines including American and Southwest Airlines.
- Country:
- United States
A telecommunications outage threw Dallas-area airports into chaos on Friday, causing over 1,800 flight delays and hundreds of cancellations. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) attributed the disruptions to a not-yet-identified issue with local telephone company equipment, prompting ground stops at both Dallas-Fort Worth and Dallas Love Field airports.
According to an FAA statement, departures to Dallas-Fort Worth were halted until 11 PM Eastern Time, while those to Dallas Love Field were stopped until at least 8:45 PM. The FAA assured that the situation did not involve any FAA equipment and that they were collaborating with the telecom provider to resolve the matter.
Flight tracking service FlightAware reported that airlines canceled 20 percent of their flights at Dallas. American Airlines was severely hit, with over 200 flights canceled and more than 500 delayed, affecting a quarter of its schedule. Southwest Airlines experienced delays in over 1,100 flights, comprising 27 percent of its operations. The telecom issue thus proved vastly disruptive, impacting some of the busiest airlines at Dallas airports.
(With inputs from agencies.)
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