Thousands of flights canceled after longest nationwide ground stop in 25 years rocks US airports

Dallas Love Field Airport was listed as closed Saturday night, according to the Federal Aviation Administration’s airport status dashboard.

The closure began at 9:29 p.m. ET Saturday and is scheduled to remain in effect until 7 a.m. ET Sunday, according to the FAA notice.

The agency did not immediately provide a reason for the closure in its public airport status listing.

The closure comes as airlines across the country continue to recover from Friday’s nationwide FAA ground stop.

New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill speaks during the The Center for American Progress (CAP) IDEAS Conference in Washington, D.C. on May 19, 2026. (Jim WATSON / AFP via Getty Images)

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill took aim at President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project Saturday as she criticized the administration over Friday’s nationwide FAA ground stop.

“The nationwide breakdown yesterday was completely unacceptable. The American people deserve an effective, competent federal government, especially with the safety of our transportation system,” Sherrill said in a statement.

“Instead of investing in vanity projects like the ballroom, Trump and Secretary Duffy should prioritize modernizing our air traffic control system.”

The Democrat governor’s criticism comes despite the Trump administration already securing $12.5 billion from Congress to begin modernizing the nation’s aging air traffic control infrastructure.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has repeatedly warned that additional funding is needed to complete the overhaul of a system that relies on decades-old technology.

The Department of Transportation said Saturday that Friday’s outage stemmed from routine maintenance on the FAA’s legacy telecommunications network, not the Trump administration’s modernization initiative.

Duffy said Saturday he would send Congress a detailed funding request by Monday to modernize the nation’s aging aviation infrastructure.

A person looks at a flight information board at LaGuardia Airport in New York on Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded flights nationwide. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

All Elite Wrestling (AEW) dropkicked a nationwide nightmare to make sure its talent and personnel made it to Phoenix for Full Gear on Saturday despite travel chaos that plagued millions across the U.S.

AEW owner Tony Khan brought in some wrestlers and other workers on private planes just to make sure they were going to show up for the fans, who were expected to pack the Mortgage Matchup Center for one of the company’s top pay-per-views on the calendar.

“I know it’s been an incredibly challenging few days for a lot of people,” Khan said in a video posted to his social media. “My sympathies to everybody affected by all of the flight cancelations and delays. Yesterday, as you can imagine, was a hectic day as it was for a lot of people with the flights grounded and that applied to all flights yesterday – private and public flights. For AEW, we’re the same as everyone else, we’re not trying to break any rules. Everybody was grounded and we started formulating a plan that has come together really, really well.”

Khan said everyone on the Full Gear pay-per-view card arrived in Phoenix. Khan sent private planes at three “hub locations” to bring the wrestlers and other personnel to the Mortgage Matchup Center. The only thing that changed was the Tailgate Brawl – which will occur on the Full Gear pre-show.

Khan said he believed everyone probably would have made it on their scheduled flights.

“I think it was virtually impossible given how many flights of people who work in AEW have been canceled had I not dispatched the private planes to the three hub locations, I think it’s very unlikely everybody would have made it here. I think there probably would have been some changes to the main card.”

This is an excerpt of an article by Fox News Digital’s Ryan Gaydos.

Flight cancellations continued to mount Saturday evening as airlines struggled to recover from Friday’s nationwide FAA ground stop, with the number of canceled flights approaching 7,000.

As of 8 p.m. ET Saturday, 6,898 flights within, into or out of the United States had been canceled and another 7,639 delayed, according to FlightAware.

The cancellation total jumped by more than 1,600 in just four hours, up from 5,295 at 4 p.m. ET.

Chicago O’Hare International Airport led the major airports tracked with 694 cancellations, followed by Dallas Fort Worth International Airport with 646 and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport with 603.

Carriers continue to face the daunting logistical task of repositioning aircraft and crews across the country following Friday’s hourslong disruption.

Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Fla., pushed back Saturday against New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s calls for Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to resign following Friday’s nationwide FAA ground stop, arguing that America’s aging aviation infrastructure is a problem that spans multiple administrations.

Lee told “Fox Report” that Congress must put partisan politics aside and provide the resources necessary to modernize the nation’s air traffic control system.

“So partisan politics is not going to help. We need to be coming together right now to get to the root of the problem and make the right strategic investments with American taxpayer dollars,” Lee said.

The Florida Republican expressed hope that Democrats would join Republicans in supporting additional funding for the FAA as Duffy seeks billions of dollars to complete the overhaul.

“This is a problem that affects every American, regardless of their political party affiliation. And we couldn’t have had a better example of that than the last 24 hours,” Lee said.

Travelers check a flight information display board at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Nov. 13, 2026, in Arlington, Va. (Li Rui/Xinhua via Getty Images)

The Department of Transportation (DOT) is pushing back against claims that the Trump administration’s multibillion-dollar effort to modernize America’s air traffic control system was responsible for Friday’s nationwide FAA ground stop.

The department told Fox News Saturday that the communications instability was triggered by routine maintenance on the FAA’s legacy telecommunications network, not the administration’s $12.5 billion modernization initiative.

Federal contractor L3Harris, which has held an FAA contract for more than 20 years, was performing work to transition aging copper telecommunications lines to fiber when a router began flooding other routers with data, disrupting radar and communications services.

DOT also rejected suggestions that SMART, an aviation data aggregation system, played a role in the outage, explaining that it does not feed information into the air traffic control system.

The department also touted progress made under Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, including modernizing 469 radio sites, deploying new surface awareness technology at 143 control towers and installing electronic flight strips at 25 towers.

Duffy has repeatedly called on Congress to provide additional funding to complete the overhaul of the nation’s aging aviation infrastructure.

Two Irish tourists found themselves sleeping on the floor of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport instead of checking into a luxury hotel in Mexico after Friday’s nationwide FAA ground stop upended their vacation plans.

Noelle Kierse and Bríd O’Riordan, both from County Cork, Ireland, told Fox News they had to book their own flights to Mexico after their connecting flight was canceled.

“It was mayhem in the airport,” Kierse recalled.

Despite the ordeal, the women made the best of their unexpected overnight stay, even treating themselves to airport massage chairs before settling down on the floor with eye masks.

“The floor was godd— hard,” O’Riordan said.

But both women praised the airline employees working to get stranded travelers to their destinations, with O’Riordan particularly impressed by the patience of fellow passengers.

“I’m glad it’s in the United States. It’s where people speak English and I speak English,” O’Riordan said.

The pair were still trying to track down their luggage Saturday but remained excited about their Mexican vacation.

“We’re going to get to Mexico and it’s going to be extra nice when we get there now,” Kierse said.

Friday’s nationwide FAA ground stop sent shockwaves through the global aviation network, with international travelers continuing to face cancellations, delays and rebooking bottlenecks Saturday.

Fox News correspondent Stephanie Bennett reported from London’s Heathrow Airport on “Fox Report” that 17 arriving flights and 14 departing flights had been canceled at the major international hub Saturday.

Canceled arrivals included American Airlines flights from Charlotte, Raleigh, Los Angeles and Miami, United Airlines flights from Chicago and Houston and British Airways flights from New York and Atlanta.

Bennett noted that Heathrow alone typically handles 25 to 30 flights daily to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport.

The disruptions extended well beyond Britain, with airports in France, Germany and Spain experiencing delays and cancellations.

Flight disruptions were also reported as far away as China, with Canada and Mexico affected as well.

British Airways and other carriers indicated operations were returning to normal but urged passengers to check their flight status before heading to the airport.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, left, and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin appear during a news conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Nov. 13, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

More than 5,200 U.S. flights have been canceled Saturday as airlines continue working to recover from Friday’s nationwide FAA ground stop, with some of the nation’s busiest airports experiencing hundreds of cancellations.

As of 4 p.m. ET Saturday, 5,295 flights within, into or out of the United States had been canceled, according to FlightAware.

Chicago O’Hare International Airport recorded 588 cancellations, while Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport saw 548 and Dallas Fort Worth International Airport reported 454.

Other major airports experiencing significant cancellations included:

John F. Kennedy International Airport: 298

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport: 188

Washington Dulles International Airport: 114

The cancellations have now surpassed the roughly 5,000 FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford anticipated Saturday morning.

The Trump administration took aim at the Biden administration’s aviation priorities Saturday following Friday’s nationwide FAA ground stop, accusing its predecessor of focusing on inclusive language while neglecting critical air traffic control infrastructure.

“Under Biden, the FAA was focused on ‘inclusive language’ — like banning the term ‘airman,'” the White House’s Rapid Response 47 account wrote on X.

The account shared footage of then-Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, questioning acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen about the agency’s November 2021 inclusive language summit.

Vance appeared incredulous as he recounted remarks from an FAA official suggesting terms like “airmen” and “unmanned aircraft” conveyed that only men belonged in the aerospace community.

“Sorry I’m laughing because this has to be a joke,” Vance said.

Nolen defended changing the terminology from “Notices to Airmen” to “Notices to Air Missions,” citing the evolution of the aerospace industry.

The White House accused the Biden administration of failing to address air traffic control problems even after the January 2023 nationwide ground stop.

“That’s why for two years, the Trump Admin has been begging Congress to partner with us and finally get it DONE!” the account wrote.

Friday’s nationwide FAA ground stop left one Tennessee traveler questioning whether America’s air travel infrastructure can withstand the upcoming Thanksgiving rush.

Sara Yacoubian, of Memphis, was scheduled to fly from Philadelphia to Nashville through Detroit Saturday when delays forced her to rearrange her travel plans.

But the widespread failure of the nation’s air traffic control communications troubled her more than the inconvenience of getting home.

“The inconvenience aside, it was, it scared me. I didn’t like it. I don’t feel satisfied,” Yacoubian told Fox News Digital.

Yacoubian questioned how the system would handle the surge in holiday travelers just weeks away, noting that Thanksgiving travel has not yet ramped up.

Yacoubian said she was relieved that she already planned to drive for the holidays rather than fly.

“Because I think if that were the case, I would think about canceling my plans,” she said.

Fox News Digital’s James Cirrione contributed to this reporting.

In this photo provided by Fox News correspondent David Spunt, operations appear to be back to normal at Ronald Reagan International Airport located near Washington, D.C. (Fox News)

After a chaotic 24 hours for American air travel, there are encouraging signs of recovery at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport outside Washington, D.C.

Fox News correspondent David Spunt observed virtually nonexistent security lines, flights taking off and only a handful of cancellations at the airport Saturday afternoon.

Travelers appeared to be in good spirits, with conditions improving significantly compared to earlier Saturday morning.

The scene marked a welcome change from Friday, when travelers spent hours stranded at airports across the country following a rare nationwide FAA ground stop.

The improvement at Reagan National comes as FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said Saturday that the worst of the disruption appears to be behind the nation’s airlines.

American Airlines warned travelers Saturday afternoon that Friday’s nationwide FAA ground stop continues to disrupt its operations as the carrier works to get stranded passengers to their destinations.

“Yesterday’s FAA nationwide ground stop led to significant disruption across our operation. Our team is working diligently to get you on your way,” the airline wrote on X.

The carrier urged passengers traveling Saturday to monitor their flight status and check rebooking options through its mobile app or website.

“Customers with flexible plans can also use these tools to change their reservation or request a refund under our travel alert,” American Airlines added.

The update comes as FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said Saturday that airlines expect to restore their full flight schedules by the end of Sunday.

The air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is pictured on Nov. 13, 2026, in Arlington, Va. (Li Rui/Xinhua via Getty Images)

L3Harris, the federal contractor at the center of Friday’s nationwide FAA ground stop, said Saturday it is assisting federal investigators as officials work to determine what triggered the massive disruption to American air travel Friday.

The company’s statement comes after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy identified L3Harris as the contractor performing routine maintenance when telecommunications failures began cascading across the nation’s air traffic control network.

L3Harris defended its ongoing efforts to modernize the nation’s aging aviation infrastructure, saying it has completed more than 70% of the planned conversion from legacy copper wires to fiber optics alongside its telecommunications partners and the FAA.

“We are supporting the FAA in its investigation to understand the conditions that led to the Nov. 13 ground stop of our nation’s air travel,” the company said.

“L3Harris takes the nationwide ground stop and its impact on travelers, airlines and air traffic operations seriously.”

Duffy said Saturday investigators are working to determine whether contractor error or a faulty router triggered the nationwide disruption, which led to thousands of flight cancellations.

Federal investigators probing Friday’s Mississippi River collision between a tanker and a docked riverboat are flying to Louisiana after the Federal Aviation Administration helped secure emergency air travel.

The National Transportation Safety Board initially planned to have investigators travel by car because of widespread air travel disruptions caused by a nationwide ground stop.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy announced Saturday that FAA Administrator Michael Bedford and his team helped prioritize and secure flights for the federal response team. NTSB board member John DeLeeuw and a team of investigators are now expected to arrive in Louisiana Saturday afternoon.

The tanker Atlantic Asphalt struck the docked American Heritage cruise ship about 1:30 p.m. EDT Friday on the Mississippi River. The riverboat was carrying 129 passengers, 32 of whom were taken to local hospitals.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said he expects there to be as many as 5,000 flights canceled out of the 41,000 that are scheduled on Saturday.

As of 1 p.m. ET Saturday, just over 5,000 U.S. flights have been canceled and more than 14,600 have been delayed, according to flight-tracking platform FlightAware.

“That will set us up for full recovery tomorrow. And based on everything that we’re hearing from our airline partners, they believe that they’ll be able to have full schedule integrity by the close of business on Sunday,” Bedford said. “I do think the worst is behind us, but we still do have a significant amount of recovery work to do.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy reiterated his demand Saturday that Congress allocate more funds to upgrading the decades-old FAA telecommunications infrastructure, known as the FTI system.

The FTI system, which is managed by L3Harris, connects air traffic control facilities across the U.S. and suffered a major outage on Friday, which was what prompted the FAA to issue a nationwide ground stop.

“Every agency within the government for better than two decades has flagged this FTI system as a critical weakness. So, this is probably one of the worst kept secrets in government that this FTI system needs to be replaced,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told reporters.

In order to prevent further malfunctions, Duffy said he has asked Congress to provide $30 billion toward the modernization of air travel, including new telecom architecture, new software, upgraded runways, and new control towers to replace 50- to 75-year-old ones.

But to cover all airspace infrastructure needs, Duffy has said the full bill would cost some $50 billion. Duffy said he’d send a full, detailed funding request to Congress by Monday.

Travel plans were ruined for hundreds of thousands of airline passengers following a nationwide FAA ground stop, which caused more than 15,000 flights to be canceled or delayed across Friday and Saturday.

People preparing to travel in the wake of this monumental event should be aware of a few key issues.

“You will continue to see some delays and cancellations as carriers reschedule flights and reposition aircraft/crews where they are needed most,” Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said in a post on X this weekend.

Travelers should continue to check their flight status directly with their airline for real-time updates, he noted.

“There are going to be planes that didn’t take off, which means the aircraft aren’t where they’re supposed to be for the next flight,” Gary Leff, a Texas-based travel industry expert, told Fox News Digital.

This means that “the crews are going to be out of position too.”

Leff added, “And when planes and crews are not where they’re supposed to be, there are downline effects for all the flights that are supposed to be operated by those people.”

The five biggest domestic airlines have shared guidelines for travelers looking for refunds or to rebook their trip after the ground stop.

Transportation Department rules say that passengers with canceled flights are entitled to a full refund if they choose not to accept a voucher or other compensation from their airline.

For those who checked bags during their travels, there are guidelines set in place to ensure passengers are reunited with lost or delayed luggage.

“If an airline unreasonably refuses to consider a bag lost after it has been missing for an unreasonable period of time, the airline could be subject to enforcement action by the DOT,” the U.S. Department of Transportation website states.

Customers are entitled to a refund if they paid a baggage fee and their bag has been lost or significantly delayed, according to the website.

FAA Acting CTO Rebecca Guy speaks during a press briefing at the Department of Transportation headquarters building in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14, 2026. (Aaron Schwartz / AFP via Getty Images)

A federal official revealed Saturday that the FAA was not aware that a malfunction like the one dealt to air traffic control communications on Friday could be so widespread.

In response to a reporter’s question about whether the FAA had ever conceived of a meltdown of this magnitude, FAA Acting CTO Rebecca Guy said, “We did not.”

“And that is exactly why we want to continue to verify and do analysis as we go forward,” Guy said.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks alongside FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford during a press briefing at the Department of Transportation headquarters building in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14, 2026. (Credit: Aaron Schwartz / AFP via Getty Images)

President Donald Trump called Sean Duffy amid Friday’s air traffic control chaos and told him to “do it fast” and “do it right,” the transportation secretary told reporters on Saturday.

“In my phone calls with him, he said, ‘I want you to know that I will commit every resource of the federal government, whatever you need. I am willing to give those resources to the FAA to make sure you guys can do this. Do it fast. Do it right,'” Duffy said.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford also said this situation prompted Trump to activate the White House Situation Room, where national security officials were assembled to assess what was going on.

Duffy said FBI Director Kash Patel was present, as was Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence.

Officials initially worried the air traffic communications meltdown might have been triggered by a foreign adversary, Duffy said, adding officials now “feel very comfortable” the root cause was not a foreign actor.

Instead, Duffy and Bedford attributed the outage to a faulty piece of equipment, noting investigators are still working to determine how the malfunction cascaded across well over a dozen FAA facilities.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a press briefing at the Department of Transportation headquarters building in Washington, DC, on Nov. 14, 2026. (Credit: Aaron Schwartz / AFP via Getty Images)

In a press briefing Saturday morning, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said air traffic control communications are back to “full operations,” while offering his fullest explanation yet of what caused the nationwide FAA ground stop on Friday.

Duffy said a contractor with L3Harris was performing routine maintenance at a remote FAA location to switch decades-old copper telecommunications lines over to fiber.

“What we’re working to determine was whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error…from L3 Harris, or did they install a faulty router?” Duffy said.

The replacement router began flooding other routers across the air traffic control network with thousands of connection attempts, overwhelming the system.

Duffy said this interfered with air traffic controllers’ ability to communicate with airplanes and disrupted radar feeds.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said officials isolated the defective piece of equipment responsible for the outage. It took roughly 45 minutes from the start of the disruptions to pinpoint the cause, which officials said has now been resolved.

“What we had were random reports from different facilities of certain frequencies that were going in and out, and requiring them to switch between primaries and backup switching,” Bedford said. “Now, if that had been a single facility, we would have just worked through it. But when we saw it go to two, three, ten, 17 facilities, that’s when we started to realize there was something much larger going on here.”

“Since we couldn’t explain it quickly, that’s when we went to the national ground stop,” Bedford added.

Bedford also repeatedly told reporters that no systems “went dark” or were “fully lost” on Friday.

There was no evidence of a cyber attack and “zero evidence of anything AI related,” Bedford said, adding that FAA’s safety system are “operating as safe today as it was two weeks ago.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy “must resign” after the nationwide halt to flight traffic on Friday.

Failing that, Hochul called on President Donald Trump to fire Duffy “immediately.”

“America’s airspace ground to a halt yesterday, leaving thousands of flights canceled and travelers stranded across the country. More than 3,500 planes were already in the air as radar and communications systems faltered. We’re fortunate no lives were lost,” Hochul said in a social media post.

“From chronic air traffic controller shortages to repeated communications breakdowns, serious lapses in our aviation system have become a pattern on Sean Duffy’s watch,” she continued. “Through it all, he’s been more focused on starring in his own reality show than addressing the crisis at his agency.”

Hochul also said Congress should launch a full investigation into what went wrong this week.

Ari Emanuel attends a film premiere on Oct. 22, 2026, in Hollywood, California. (Credit: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for AFI)

Entertainment executive Ari Emanuel, the younger brother of former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, blamed the meltdown of the nation’s air traffic control communications on former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“No one’s hands are clean here. However, Mr. Secretary Buttigieg, you had four years in the job and infrastructure money, yet made zero progress modernizing the FAA. You left a failing system in place. THANKS!” wrote Emanuel, who leads the company behind the UFC and WWE.

The nationwide ground stop was lifted at 8:15 p.m. ET Friday, after current Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said telecommunications issues began at FAA air traffic control and terminal radar approach facilities across the country at 3:36 p.m. ET.

“Today’s nationwide ground stop happened because our air traffic control system is operating on DECADES-OLD, analog equipment that simply cannot compete with the demands of the 21st century,” Duffy wrote on X Friday night after flight restrictions were lifted.

A 2024 Government Accountability Office report found that 51 of the FAA’s 138 air traffic control systems were unsustainable, with many facilities still relying on decades-old telecommunications lines.

Parked planes are seen at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 13, 2026. (Credit: Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)

More than 4,200 U.S. flights have been canceled and nearly 11,000 others were delayed by 9:40 a.m. ET Saturday, according to flight-tracking platform FlightAware.

Combined with Friday’s totals, nearly 50,000 flights have been delayed or canceled over the past two days.

By comparison, the last nationwide FAA ground stop — triggered in January 2023 after an outage in the agency’s pilot-alerting system — lasted less than two hours and resulted in roughly 1,300 cancellations and more than 10,000 delays.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks as Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin listens on at the White House on Nov. 13, 2026 in Washington, D.C. (Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a social media post Saturday morning that flights across the United States are slowly resuming, while also reassuring Americans that it is safe to fly.

“We are in close coordination with the airlines to support the ongoing recovery,” he wrote on X. “You will continue to see some delays and cancellations as carriers reschedule flights and reposition aircraft/crews where they are needed most.”

Duffy said the top priority is to make sure “travelers get home safely to their families as quickly as possible.”

He also thanked air traffic controllers, pilots, and flight crews for their “professionalism and dedication to the flying public.”

Duffy will hold a press conference sharing additional updates at 10:30 a.m. ET.

People watch from across the Mississippi River as a tugboat stabilizes the riverboat American Heritage after it capsized following a collision with the tanker Atlantic Asphalt near the Port of New Orleans on Nov. 13, 2026 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Credit: Michael DeMocker/Getty Images)

Due to widespread air travel disruptions, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators are opting to drive to New Orleans to probe Friday’s collision between a tanker and a river cruise ship on the Mississippi River.

No media briefings are planned at this time but the NTSB team is expected to arrive sometime Saturday morning.

The Atlantic Asphalt tanker struck the docked American Heritage cruise ship at around 1:30 p.m. ET Friday. There were 129 passengers on board the riverboat, bringing the total to roughly 180 to 190 people once crew members were included, according to New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno.

All passengers and crew are accounted for, and 32 people were transported to hospitals, officials said.

It has been almost 12 hours since the FAA lifted its nationwide ground stop, but the cumulative effect of well over 15,000 U.S. flights being delayed or canceled has left travelers reeling and looking for answers.

Here’s what the five biggest domestic airlines in the U.S. have communicated to their customers so far about the biggest disruption to air travel in 25 years.

American Airlines said Friday it would prioritize “flights to non-hub cities, as well as international flying” reposition displaced aircraft and crews.

American Airlines issued a travel waiver covering passengers booked on or before Thursday, Nov. 12 for flights on Friday, Nov. 13 or Saturday, Nov. 14.

The waiver covered 21 major airports — including Dallas-Fort Worth, Charlotte, Chicago O’Hare, Miami, JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, LAX, and Reagan National.

Eligible flyers, including Basic Economy ticket holders, can rebook for free in the same cabin, as long as their new ticket has the same origin and destination. They can book a new trip through Nov. 17, provided they make the change by Saturday, Nov. 14.

Travelers can also postpone their trip up to a year without a change fee — though a fare difference may apply — or cancel their trip and request a refund.

Travelers wait in line at an American Airlines counter during a nationwide ground stop at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, on Nov. 13, 2026. (Credit: Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Delta is gradually resuming flights and has issued a systemwide travel waiver covering trips scheduled for Friday, Nov. 13 and Saturday, Nov. 14. 

The carrier is offering affected flyers the longest rebooking window among major airlines — allowing passengers to change their flights and depart on or before Saturday, Nov. 21 without paying extra fees or fare differences.

United said Friday night it was restarting operations, including some late-night flights, though like other major carriers, it is still contending with hundreds of cancellations and delays Saturday.

United is waiving change fees and fare differences for travelers scheduled to fly Friday, Nov. 13 and Saturday, Nov. 14.

Eligible customers can rebook flights departing through Friday, Nov. 20 at no extra cost, provided they stay in the same cabin and travel between the same origin and destination cities.

United Airlines planes remain at their gates at LaGuardia airport on Nov. 13, 2026 in the Queens borough of New York City. (Credit: Adam Gray/Getty Images)

Southwest Airlines is offering flexible options for customers holding reservations from Friday, Nov. 13 through Monday, Nov. 16 — the widest rebooking window among its competitors.

Affected travelers can rebook or fly standby within five days of their original departure date without paying a fare difference, or request a full refund if their flight is canceled or significantly delayed.

JetBlue said it will waive fare differences and change and cancel fees for customers who had flights scheduled on Friday, Nov. 13 or Saturday, Nov. 14.

Customers can rebook their travel through Wednesday, Nov. 18. The airline noted that if a reservation includes 10 or more people, you must call 1-800-538-2583 to rebook.

JetBlue also issued a travel waiver for people who were departing from the New York City area during the severe weather that impacted flights on Thursday, Nov. 12 and Friday, Nov. 13. Those customers can also rebook from now until Wednesday, Nov. 18.

The affected airports included Long Island MacArthur Airport (ISP), John F. Kennedy (JFK), LaGuardia (LGA), Newark Liberty (EWR) and Westchester County Airport (HPN).

Reminder: If your flight was canceled, you are entitled to a full refund if you choose not to accept a voucher or any other compensation from your airline, per Transportation Department rules.

A JetBlue Airbus A320 airplane taxis at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport after arriving from Fort Lauderdale on Nov. 7, 2026 in Arlington, Virginia. (Credit: Kevin Carter/Getty Images)

The logo of US software company Workday Inc. is displayed on a smartphone in front of abstract background on computer screen. (Credit: Timon Schneider/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Workday, the human resources platform millions of U.S. employees rely on to check pay stubs, request time off and manage workplace tasks, suffered a widespread outage Friday that the Bay Area company is still working to resolve.

It comes amid two other major technology failures that have roiled the country over the past few days: a widespread Microsoft bug that left millions unable to email one another until it was resolved early Saturday and the FAA ground stop that canceled thousands of flights.

The peak of the Workday outage came around 5:20 p.m. on Friday, according to DownDetector, with thousands of people reporting they could not access their accounts. As of 6:20 a.m. on Saturday, there are still reports of service disruptions.

Some 11,500 companies use Workday, including major retailers like Target and Walmart, according to the company’s website.

“Some of our customers are experiencing a service disruption and we’re working urgently to investigate and resolve the issue,” a Workday spokesperson told LiveNOW from FOX. “We sincerely apologize for the challenges this is causing impacted customers.”

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the problem began after a bug was discovered while Workday engineers were testing their backup systems.

Flights began taking off at major airports across the United States late Friday after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted its nationwide ground stop, offering relief to travelers stranded for hours by the widespread disruption.

Fox News reported that a Southwest Airlines plane departed from New York’s LaGuardia Airport, while two Delta Air Lines planes were seen taxiing in preparation for takeoff.

On the West Coast, planes were also seen taking off from Los Angeles International Airport.

Fox News senior national correspondent Kevin Corke reported from Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., that multiple flights had begun departing after passengers spent hours waiting for service to resume.

Corke said some travelers had been at the airport since approximately 3:30 p.m., waiting for flights scheduled to depart around 4 p.m.

“Finally, a couple of flights have left, and those are domestic flights,” Corke reported.

Corke also reported that some international flights had begun departing, while airports in the San Francisco Bay Area were seeing similar progress with flights headed across the Pacific.

“This idea that we’re finally getting some international flights and a trickle of domestic flights — that, my friend, is great news,” Corke said.

Covered by: James Cirrone, Michael Sinkewicz, Alexandra Koch and Jasmine Baehr