FAA Glitch Delays Many Flights And Airports
From Associated Press: as of 1:19 pm PDT
ATLANTA - The Federal Aviation Administration says a communication failure at a Georgia facility that processes flight plans for the eastern half of the U.S. is causing flight delays around the country.
FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen says there are no safety issues and officials are still able to speak to pilots on planes on the ground and in the air.
She says she doesn’t know how many flights are being affected.
Bergen says the problem that occurred Tuesday afternoon involves an FAA facility in Hampton, Ga., south of Atlanta, that processes flight plans. She says there has been a failure in a communication link that transmits the data to a similar facility in Salt Lake City.
As a result, the Salt Lake City facility has to process those flight plans, causing delays in planes taking off. She said there are no problems with planes landing.
“There will be flight delays,” Bergen said. “It could be any location, because one facility is now processing flight data for everybody.”
A spokesman for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world’s busiest airport, did not immediate return a call seeking comment on the impact there. Bergen said officials at the Atlanta airport were entering flight data manually to try to speed things up.
Brenda Geoghagan, a spokeswoman for Tampa International Airport in Florida, said “it may just be too soon” to determine the impact there.
At Miami International Airport, there were no delays or cancellations due to the communication failure, said spokesman Marc Henderson.
“There are cancellations due to weather from the hurricane, but not due to this,” he said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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