Fear, rumors and confusion rippled through El Paso on Wednesday morning as residents, travelers and local leaders grappled with the enactment of an unprecedented 10-day airspace shutdown that federal officials struggled to explain.
Flights in and out of El Paso International Airport were canceled as first responders, including the El Paso Police Department, dispatched additional crews. Within hours, media swarmed the airport in search of answers, but found only stranded travelers.
Hours later, the Federal Aviation Administration lifted the grounding, saying there was no threat to aviation and that flights could resume.
“The show’s over,” an EPPD officer at the airport said after the restriction was lifted.
By that time, many travelers had taken rental cars to their destinations or canceled plans altogether. Some were able to rebook their canceled flights, while others were struggling.
Alex Valdez, Cathedral High School’s head basketball coach, waits in line at a ticket counter at El Paso International Airport, Feb. 11, 2026. He had planned to get his team to a tournament in Dallas with plenty of time to practice and rest, but the team is now split onto different flights with arrivals far later than anticipated. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)
“It’s a mess,” said Alex Valdez, the varsity head basketball coach at Cathedral High School. He and his assistant coaches were taking his team to Dallas for a tournament, which was set to begin Friday. “It looks like we’re at LAX,” he said of Los Angeles International Airport.
The team was set for a 10:25 a.m. flight and hoped to get in a day early for practice time. With the delays, some of the players’ families decided to make the nine-hour drive to Dallas. Others were separated in two flights – at 1 and 4:15 p.m.
“It’s like missing a free throw,” Valdez said.
Late Tuesday, the FAA abruptly issued an unexplained order classifying airspace over El Paso and a broad swath of southern New Mexico as “national defense airspace,” grounding all flights — commercial, cargo, general aviation and even medevac. The shutdown was initially slated to be a 10-day shutdown under “special security reasons.” The El Paso restrictions were lifted within seven hours; the New Mexico restrictions remain.
The disruption stemmed from a disagreement between the FAA and the Pentagon over testing laser-based anti-drone technology at Fort Bliss, U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-New Mexico, said.
“Our airport was in chaos. Our community was scared, all because someone decided to shut down our airspace. You just cannot do that, and they lifted it real quick,” El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson said during a news conference at City Hall. “So we’ve got to figure out what the root cause of that problem is.”
Officials at University Medical Center of El Paso, the region’s only Level 1 trauma center, said they became aware of the shutdown from local news reports early Wednesday. Several hospital leaders began to determine what the impact might be and how they could assist each other if it lasted 10 days, UMC said in a statement.
“During the temporary grounding, UMC remained fully operational and did not experience issues with transfers via air medical services, but was prepared nonetheless to respond by other means, if it became necessary,” officials said in the statement. “Capacity, staffing, critical supply levels, and contingency protocols remained at the forefront to ensure patient safety while air transport was unavailable.”
El Paso Children’s Hospital officials said they were not impacted by the airport shutdown and there was no disruption to critical care transport operations.
A screen at the El Paso International Airport shows some of the dozens of arrivals and departures that have been cancelled and delayed after the Federal Aviation Administration restricted El Paso airspace for about eight hours, Feb. 11, 2026. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)
Socorro Independent School District officials said the airspace shutdown disrupted some student groups’ travel plans, including musicians headed to state competitions, and a wrestling and two softball teams. Ysleta ISD officials said all student travel plans remain intact, adding that they’re monitoring all conditions to ensure students remain safe.
Leila Melendez, chief executive officer at Workforce Solutions Borderplex, said she was supposed to fly to a meeting in Fort Worth at noon but canceled her plans. She used her situation as an example of lost hours of productivity due to the shutdown.
“Some people were scared and others were mad,” she said. “I told them that they had to manage their emotions and focus on work. This was a blip, but if it had lasted 10 days, there would not have been a lot of work done.”
El Paso Matters reporters Daniel Perez, Elida S. Perez, Claudia Lorena Silva and Priscilla Totiyapungprasert contributed to this story.
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