Published November 14, 2026 · By
Flight cancellations topped 4,000 across the United States on Saturday, November 14, as airlines worked to rebuild schedules a day after a nationwide Federal Aviation Administration ground stop froze departures at every U.S. airport for more than four hours. At a news conference in Washington, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the outage began while the FAA's longtime network contractor, L3Harris Technologies, was switching lines at a remote site, though he said investigators have not yet determined exactly what failed.
Here is what happened, what officials and lawmakers said, and what the disruption means for your refund rights and upcoming trips.
Flight Cancellations by the Numbers
The ground stop began at 3:36 p.m. ET on Friday, November 13, when about 3,500 planes were in the air, according to CBS News. It was lifted at about 8:15 p.m. ET. Yahoo News described it as the longest nationwide ground stop since the September 11, 2001, attacks, while CBS noted it was the first nationwide halt since a January 2023 FAA computer failure.
Friday's flight cancellations were severe. Flight-tracking site FlightAware counted roughly 9,159 canceled flights and about 7,190 delays within, into or out of the U.S., CBS reported. Yahoo News, citing officials, reported that about 12,000 flights could not be completed Friday, including roughly 9,000 commercial and 3,000 general aviation flights. American, Southwest, Delta and United each canceled more than 1,100 flights that day.
The flight cancellations carried into the weekend. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said he expected 4,000 to 5,000 of the roughly 41,000 flights scheduled Saturday to be canceled, and FlightAware showed more than 4,000 U.S. flight cancellations by late Saturday morning. Bedford said he expected schedules to be fully back to normal by the close of business on Sunday.
Why the disruption lasted into Saturday
When flight cancellations pile up by the thousands in a single afternoon, aircraft and crews end up in the wrong cities. Airlines then have to reposition planes, respect pilot and flight attendant duty limits, and rebook stranded passengers, which can keep schedules thin for a day or more. Officials said airspace was operating normally by Saturday morning, but the recovery of airline networks takes longer than the restart of air traffic control systems.
What Caused the Ground Stop
Speaking at Transportation Department headquarters on Saturday, Duffy said the problem started while L3Harris was moving lines from copper wire to fiber at at least one remote FAA site. He described L3Harris as the FAA's legacy network provider for more than 20 years and said the company owns that network. According to Yahoo News, Duffy said a router involved in the switch began flooding other routers, with more than 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds.
As flight cancellations mounted, Duffy also said officials were still working out whether the failure came from contractor error or a faulty router. "We haven't determined what the fault was," he said, according to Yahoo News. L3Harris did not immediately respond to Yahoo News' request for comment, and no public statement from the company appeared in the coverage reviewed for this article.
Bedford said the agency was dealing with an equipment issue and that there was no evidence of anything nefarious. CBS News, citing multiple sources, reported that an update to the private communications network linking the air traffic control system caused it to reboot and then crash, and that a preliminary review pointed to Cisco routers built between 2001 and 2006.
No sign of a cyberattack so far
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters at the White House that the failure appeared to be mechanical and that new patches and equipment may have overwhelmed the older system, SecurityWeek reported. He said there was "no chatter" pointing to hackers but that officials were not ruling anything out, and that the NSA, the Defense Department and CISA were involved in the review. Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported that the FBI does not believe a cyberattack or criminal activity caused the outage and is examining a software update as a possible cause.
How Officials and Lawmakers Responded
The administration has tied the outage and the resulting flight cancellations to the age of the air traffic control system. On Friday, Duffy said the FAA still relies on old switches, old routers and copper lines dating to the 1980s, and he asked Congress for $50 billion to modernize the system. That request comes on top of the $12.5 billion lawmakers approved last year. President Trump had earlier asked for about $30 billion, according to Yahoo News. Duffy said more outages could happen unless Congress funds a new system.
Democrats pressed for accountability over the flight cancellations. Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, the top Democrat on a Senate aviation subcommittee, called for a full investigation into what led to the ground stop. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, called on Duffy to resign on Saturday, Yahoo News reported.
Republicans control both chambers of Congress until January, when the next Congress is seated. The coverage reviewed for this article did not include on-the-record reactions from Republican congressional leaders to Saturday's news conference. We covered the earlier funding fight in our report on Sean Duffy's $50 billion request.
Flight Cancellations: What It Means for You
If your trip was hit by the flight cancellations, the most important rights concern refunds and rebooking. Under Transportation Department rules, if an airline cancels your flight and you choose not to travel, you are entitled to a refund rather than only a voucher. The department explains the rules on its official airline refunds page.
Airline waivers you can use
Major carriers issued travel waivers for travelers hit by flight cancellations, according to Fox News. Delta said customers with November 13 or 14 trips could rebook to depart on or before November 21 without fees or fare differences. United waived change fees and fare differences for those dates, with rebooking through November 20. Southwest offered flexible options for reservations from November 13 through November 16, and JetBlue allowed rebooking through November 18. American offered free same-cabin rebooking at 21 airports, plus refunds for canceled trips.
A new rule may limit extra compensation
A Transportation Department rule that took effect October 19 moves several types of disruptions, including unexpected failures of government systems that affect safe flight operations, out of the category of events within an airline's control, LiveNOW from Fox reported. That change, tied to the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, could make it harder to get extra compensation beyond a refund for flight cancellations caused by an outage like Friday's. Airlines can still offer meals, hotels or credits on their own, so it is worth asking.
Practical steps before your next trip
- Check your flight status in the airline's app before heading to the airport.
- Look up airport delays on the FAA's National Airspace System Status page.
- If flight cancellations hit your trip and you no longer want to fly, ask for a refund to your original form of payment.
- Save receipts for meals, hotels or ground transportation in case your airline offers reimbursement.
- With Thanksgiving travel ahead, build extra time into your plans and keep your airline's contact details handy.
For background on Friday's events, see our earlier coverage of the nationwide FAA ground stop.
What Happens Next
Officials have not announced an official root cause, and federal agencies are still reviewing the failure. The next steps to watch include whether the FAA releases a formal finding on the L3Harris network work, whether Congress acts on the administration's funding request before the new Congress takes office in January, and whether flight cancellations ease and airlines return to full schedules by Sunday as Bedford projected.
Our analysis: For most travelers, the short-term impact of the flight cancellations should fade once airline networks recover. The longer-term questions, about how the system is funded, who is responsible for its equipment, and how often outages could happen, are now part of a broader debate in Washington.
This article is for information only and is not financial or legal advice.
Sources: Yahoo News live coverage (November 14, 2026); CBS News (November 14, 2026); SecurityWeek, citing Bloomberg (November 14, 2026); Fox News live coverage (November 14, 2026); LiveNOW from Fox (November 13, 2026); U.S. Department of Transportation; Federal Aviation Administration.
