The Federal Aviation Administration has lifted flight restrictions over El Paso, Texas.
“There is no threat to commercial aviation,” the FAA said in a Wednesday morning X post. “All flights will resume as normal.”
“Mexican cartel drones breached US airspace,” a Trump administration official told Business Insider of the disruption. The official added that the Defense Department “took action to disable the drones” and that it has determined there’s no threat to commercial travel.
The FAA earlier issued a notice halting all flights for 10 days, citing “special security reasons.”
In a statement late Tuesday night, El Paso International Airport said all flights were grounded after the FAA issued temporary flight restrictions.
The FAA’s notice went into effect from 11:30 p.m. MT on Tuesday and was set to last until the same time on February 20.
It appeared to be the first time since the September 11 attacks that the airspace above a major US city was shut.
The flight restrictions covered a radius of 10 nautical miles around the airport, below 18,000 feet. Another area just over the New Mexico border is also subject to flight restrictions.
Around 100 flights a day are typically scheduled to and from El Paso, according to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company.
After hours of confusion, it now looks like flights will take off, but well behind schedule. According to data from Flightradar24, the average delay is over three hours.
The Defense Department referred Business Insider to the FAA for comment. The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
In a Facebook post earlier on Wednesday morning, El Paso city councilman Chris Canales said he had no reason to believe there was any imminent safety threat to the city. He said there appeared to have been no advance notice to local leadership or airport leadership.
“We have urged the FAA to immediately lift the temporary flight restrictions,” Veronica Escobar, the representative for El Paso’s congressional district, had said in an X post.
El Paso sits on the border with Mexico and is home to Fort Bliss, a major Army post. It is home to an ICE Service Processing Center with the capacity to hold nearly 900 detainees. It’s also the site of a planned short-term, 5,000-person ICE detention facility that’s set to be completed in September 2027, according to a Defense Department contract announced in July.
The city is 200 miles from Marfa, a town known as an arts center.
Guy Gratton, a professor of aircraft test and evaluation at Cranfield University, said the flight restrictions extended “much higher than most security airspace closures” and don’t appear to permit military or medical flights.
“That is very unusual indeed,” he said in a post on X.
How are airlines responding?
“Travelers should contact their airlines to get most up-to-date flight status information,” the airport said in its statement.
American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines all operate flights to and from the Texas city. FedEx and UPS also had scheduled cargo flights.
In a statement to Business Insider, Southwest said it has “paused all operations” to and from El Paso, notified all affected customers, and “will share additional information as it becomes available.”
A United Airlines spokesperson pointed to its travel waiver, letting affected passengers reschedule their trip at no extra cost. It lasted until February 20, but may be updated now that restrictions have been lifted.
None of the other operators immediately responded to requests for comment sent outside US working hours.
A small cargo plane operated by Sierra West Airlines was due to land in El Paso around 1 a.m., but instead diverted to Las Cruces, New Mexico, according to data from Flightradar24.
Two Delta flights scheduled for Wednesday morning were also listed as canceled.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.