Over 3,300 flights headed from and to the United States, as well as within the country, have been canceled as of 5:15 am ET on Saturday following the US Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) ground stop, according to the flight tracking data company FlightAware. Meanwhile, nearly 1,000 flights within, to, or from the US have been delayed. The airline with the largest number of canceled flights was Delta Air Lines, followed by United and American Airlines, while the most impacted airports were Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson, New York’s John F. Kennedy, and Boston Logan. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy previously requested $50 billion in emergency funding from the US Congress to modernize the American air traffic control system, after claiming that the ground stop was caused by the overloading of the older system.
NN: The stone age system. Really the technology exists to stream line the system. A lot of the problem is the FAA does not want to give up control. The technology exists to move a lot of what controllers do to computers onboard the aircraft. Imagine a self driving car that has to talk by radio to a human at a center to ask permission to change its lane.
The worst command i ever got while flying in the clouds on instruments was from Kansas city center with a panicked controller screaming Lehma Mike traffic 12.00 unreported altitude, distance unknow. The other plane was in my face… Fortunately i kicked in right rudder and pulled back on the stick. The other pilot fortunately kicked in left rudder and dove As we passed within a few feet i could see the rivets on his planes belly. Now you may asked why i climbed. It was a split second decision where i figured most people would dive. I never told my mother.