Equipment outages grounded flights into Philly airport and caused long delays
The ground stop came after a circuit failed at an air traffic control tower in Philadelphia, and officials found that a line from a backup system was cut at a construction site in New Jersey.
Flights into Philadelphia International Airport were grounded for much of the day Monday due to a stop instituted by the Federal Aviation Administration that impacted hundreds of flights in the Northeast in the wake of equipment outages.
Incoming flights were briefly allowed to resume at one point, but were again halted a short time later, according to the FAA’s airspace system status. The ground stop was again lifted at about 5 p.m. Monday.
Both arriving and departing flights were facing lengthy delays. It was not immediately clear whether further ground stops were expected.
As of late Monday afternoon, PHL had experienced about 400 delays and 200 cancellations, according to data from flight tracking website FlightAware. Some airlines were allowing their customers to change flights without fees. The FAA advised travelers to check the status of their flights with their airline before heading to the airport.
During the stops, FAA said planes departing from a U.S. airport and heading to PHL should remain on the ground. At times, flights at John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, and Bergen County’s Teterboro Airport were also affected.
The ground stop came after a circuit failed at an air traffic control tower in Philadelphia, and officials found that a line from a backup system was cut at a construction site in New Jersey, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said. The technical problems happened at the same FAA facility in Philadelphia that caused numerous disruptions at Newark Liberty International Airport in spring 2025.
“Unfortunately, that circuit failed today,” Bedford said at a Monday news conference. “And when it went to flip into the backup, we discovered that the backup fiber had a break, and that fiber break is probably 13 hours to repair.”
Bedford described the break as “massive,” and said it consisted of about 600 feet of fiber line somewhere between New Brunswick and Newark. It was not immediately clear when the break in the fiber line for the backup occurred, he said.
Verizon said contractors had dug up and cut the cable that runs along the Amtrak rail line in New Jersey. The company said in a statement that its technicians were racing to get the cable fixed.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the ground stop showed the need for more funding to modernize infrastructure.
“This is not shocking to us,” Duffy said. “It’s an old system that we’re stuck working with.”
The FAA on Monday also began testing a new computer system that uses AI to help predict schedule conflicts and weather issues, but it did not appear to be linked to the outage because it was only being tested in the Washington, D.C., area.
This article contains information from the Associated Press.
