PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — Damaged communications lines at a key air traffic control facility in Philadelphia had been repaired, allowing airports across the Northeast to resume operations after hours of disruptions, the nation’s transportation secretary said Monday evening.<\/p>\n
The Federal Aviation Administration issued two ground stops at Philadelphia International Airport, which halted hundreds of flights in the Northeast on Monday.<\/p>\n
Hours after officials said the fix to replace the circuit in Philadelphia had not worked, leaving operations still halted at Philadelphia and Newark’s airports, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy updated Monday evening that the telecom lines have been repaired and “all airport operations in the Northeast are resuming.”<\/p>\n
“It will take some time to clear all existing delays, so please check with your airline for the latest information,” he said on X.<\/p>\n
More than 1,000 flights were canceled nationwide and over 6,000 were delayed on Monday, with Newark and Philadelphia hit the hardest.<\/p>\n
The primary communications line at the Federal Aviation Administration facility in Philadelphia had failed earlier Monday, while the backup fiber optic line was inadvertently severed by construction workers. The failures left controllers without radar or communications for hours.<\/p>\n
The outage brought commercial air traffic to a near-standstill at Newark Liberty International Airport for much of the day, with no commercial flights landing at the airport from about 9:40 a.m. to just after 5:20 p.m. local time, according to flight-tracking site Flightradar24<\/a>.<\/p>\n More than 200 flights into and out of Philadelphia International Airport were also canceled, while disruptions hit LaGuardia and Kennedy airports in New York. By Monday evening, flights were resuming at those airports.<\/p>\n Some airlines were allowing customers to change flights without charge. The FAA advised travelers to check the status of their flights before heading to the airport.<\/p>\n