Updated at 6:41 p.m.
SOUTH BURLINGTON — A system outage at the Federal Aviation Administration interfered with flights in Burlington on Wednesday morning, leaving travelers to face long delays or reschedule their flights.
At about 7:15 a.m. on Wednesday, the FAA said in a statement that it had grounded all domestic departures until 9 a.m. while it worked to “fully restore the Notice to Air Missions system following an outage.” Flight crews rely on the system to obtain safety information, according to the federal agency, which said it was still looking into the cause of the outage.
In Burlington, a flight tracking website, Flightstats, showed 55 flights scheduled to depart from Burlington International Airport between 5:15 a.m. and noon. Of those, only 17 were on time; most of those were to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Two were cargo or private flights. All other flights were canceled, delayed or diverted.
Just before 9 a.m., the FAA issued another statement, saying that “normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the United States following an overnight outage to the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system that provides safety information to flight crews.”
But the outage had ripple effects on flights around the country. According to Associated Press, more than 1,100 flights were canceled and 7,700 flights had been delayed as of midday Wednesday.
At the Burlington airport, lines at the check-in counters around 10 a.m. were short and only a handful of stranded travelers waited outside the secure terminal. Flight status boards showed most arrivals delayed or canceled and most morning departures delayed.
A large group of employees from O’Reilly Auto Parts was trying to get to a conference in Dallas. Huddled together, they tried to figure out how to kill time while facing an hourslong delay.
Shaun Trombley of Plattsburgh, New York, said the group was supposed to be on a 6 a.m. flight. “And then it got delayed and it was 8, 8:30, and then now they’re canceling everything.”
After answering a few questions, Trombley said he got a text message from the airline and headed toward a customer service desk to try to make other arrangements.
Andrew Done of Shoreham was trying to get to Denver to visit his son.
“I had read about the FAA outage and driving here I got the text from Delta saying that flight was delayed,” Done said.
He gave an interview soon after ending a phone call with Delta Airlines to book a new flight, making his journey to Denver several hours longer and with one additional connection.
Reached Wednesday evening, Director of Aviation Nic Longo said in an email that “right now flights are recovering quickly, and airlines are getting back on schedule throughout this evening. I expect tomorrow mornings flights will be on time and every seat filled.”
