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Air travel disruptions across the United States may continue until Monday as the Donald Trump administration struggles to restore normal operations following a nationwide ground stop that triggered widespread flight cancellations.
The administration said on Sunday that although flight operations were expected to improve during the day, it could take another 24 hours for airlines to fully reposition aircraft, crews and stranded passengers.
Hundreds of additional flights were cancelled on Sunday, raising fresh concerns about the state of the country’s aviation infrastructure and its ability to cope with disruptions.
The Federal Government blamed Friday’s disruption on faulty work during an upgrade of air traffic control communication cables.
President Donald Trump broke his silence on the incident on Sunday, blaming his predecessor, Joe Biden, for the condition of the country’s aviation infrastructure.
Trump said he inherited an outdated and poorly maintained system from the previous administration, calling on Congress to approve funding for its modernisation.
“The Biden Administration was an FAA disaster,” he said, referring to the Federal Aviation Administration.
“Everything they touched turned bad. Big money spent unwisely, making an old and broken system worse than when they began,” Trump added.
The FAA chief, Bryan Bedford, had said on Saturday that air travel for millions of passengers stranded at airports would return to normal by the close of business on Sunday.
However, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the recovery would take longer because aircraft and crew members had been displaced by Friday’s disruption.
“So, in the airspace, we’re going to see things come back to normal today, but probably fully normal tomorrow,” Duffy said in an interview with ABC News.
“We had airplanes and crews out of position because of Friday, so it takes a little bit of time to do that.”
Duffy also rejected calls for his resignation over the disruption, arguing that he inherited an outdated air traffic control system, including radar equipment dating back to the 1960s.
“So when we do work and things go wrong, of course I’m the secretary. But I also have to acknowledge what was delivered to me,” he said during an interview with CNN.
Data from flight-tracking platform FlightAware showed that 1,460 flights within, into or out of the United States had been cancelled as of Sunday morning.
The Trump administration attributed Friday’s ground stop, which prevented aircraft from taking off, to a failed attempt to replace old copper-wire communication lines.
The disruption was reportedly only the second nationwide ground stop in US airspace since the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Beyond the immediate travel chaos, the incident has renewed concerns about the condition of the country’s ageing aviation infrastructure.
Duffy has appealed to Congress for $50 billion to upgrade and modernise the air traffic control system, urging lawmakers to provide the necessary funding.
However, Democrats criticised the administration’s appeal, arguing that Republicans, who control Congress, already had the opportunity to approve the funding.
