NYC airport faces delays after air traffic control outage | Today’s news
(Bloomberg) — Flights at New York’s major airports were grounded after a technical problem at an air traffic control facility in Philadelphia curtailed travel and delayed the arrival of visitors to the United Nations General Assembly.
A so-called ground stop is in effect at Newark Liberty International Airport and Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, which serves private jets, according to the Federal Aviation Administration’s National Airspace System Status website.
The FAA canceled earlier ground stops for LaGuardia, John F. Kennedy International and Philadelphia International Airport. The Newark order remains in effect until 4:45 p.m. from 3 p.m
About 209 flights, or 37% of Newark’s scheduled departures, were canceled, according to the FlightAware tracker. About the same number of scheduled arrivals were also canceled as of 3:26 p.m
Philadelphia had average departure delays of more than three hours as of 3:00 p.m. local time Monday, while Teterboro had delays of more than five hours. The outage comes as New York hosts the United Nations General Assembly this week, bringing world leaders to the city.
“The timing is absolutely terrible,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told reporters during an event in Washington. “I am very sorry for the delays and cancellations the traveling public are experiencing, but their safety is paramount.”
The outage was caused by a primary circuit failure at the Philadelphia facility that guides flights to Newark and Philadelphia airports, Bedford said. A backup fiber-optic cable had a cut that will take about 13 hours to repair, Bedford said.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a social media post that an Amtrak construction crew accidentally severed the thread.
Verizon Communications Inc. has a fiber optic cable that runs next to the Amtrak rail line in New Jersey. “Construction contractors working in the area dug up and cut our cable,” Verizon spokesman Richard Young said in an email. The company is not responsible for the incident, a Verizon spokesperson added.
The FAA’s attempt to replace the faulty circuit failed, Bedford said earlier Monday. The agency had to close several airports in the Northeast for repair efforts, but has since started bringing some back online.
United Airlines Holdings Inc., which has one of its largest hubs in Newark, advised affected customers that they could rebook their trips for free until Sept. 23.
The Philadelphia facility is the same location where major technological failures occurred in 2025, causing several disruptions. Duffy pointed to problems in his effort to extensively modernize US air traffic control equipment.
Both Duffy and Bedford said on Monday that the recent breakdown at the circuit once again underscored the importance of the upgrade.
“It’s crazy to see how we have to prosecute these 50-year-old, outdated issues on the circuit,” Bedford said.
Technical issues can quickly have widespread side effects on flights. In the UK on Monday, a brief fault knocked out operations at a key hub in Scotland, leading to delays. The problem came two weeks after a massive nationwide breach of UK airspace.
–With help from Myles Miller.
(All updates with comments from officials and details of ground stops.)
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