On Friday afternoon, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a nationwide ground stop for all airports in the United States. If you’re planning to fly this afternoon or evening, or you have friends or family doing the same, you’re likely concerned about tracking flight statuses. While there’s still a lot we don’t know, there are tools to help track flights at this time:
How to track flights during the nationwide ground stop
There are a number of options for tracking flights, whether you have your flight number or not. If you have the flight number, the fastest method is to Google it: Google will display a live tracker of your flight at the top of the results page. You can also head to the airline’s official website to track your flight: United Airlines, for example, has a flight tracker where you can either enter your route information or your flight number. Most, if not all, airlines will have a similar tool you can use.
Alternatively, you can use a site or service that tracks all flights. FlightAware is one such site and has a flight tracker that lets you search flights—so long as you know the origin and the destination. If you have the flight number, your iPhone can help: You can enter your flight number into Spotlight search to see a live tracker, or you can text a contact your flight number, then tap the link that appears under the number to see a tracker of the flight.
Why did the FAA order a nationwide ground stop?
At this time, the exact reason isn’t totally clear. According to the agency, “The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following communication issues impacting multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers,” but the FAA hasn’t said what caused those communications issues or when they expect to lift the grounding. The grounding order comes one day after a massive Microsoft outage that disrupted service for users of Outlook, Teams, and other Microsoft products. It also comes one day after Ars Technica reported that the FAA was rolling out an AI-powered tool to help manage air traffic across the country.
What do you think so far?
This is only the third time in U.S. history that the FAA has made such an order—once after 9/11, and again in January of 2023 due to a pilot alert system issue; the latter ground stop lasted around 90 minutes.