Flights across the U.S. may face “residual delays” on Sunday morning as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) works to restore a crucial warning system that went down on Saturday night, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
He explained on X that the primary NOTAM system was temporarily out of service, but assured there was no immediate impact on the National Airspace System because a backup system had been activated to maintain flight operations.
The FAA is working to fully restore the system, and some residual delays are expected on Sunday morning, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. He mentioned that the FAA is investigating the cause of the outage and will provide updates as they have more information.
By early Sunday, over 360 flights within, into, or out of the U.S. had been delayed, and 59 flights were canceled, according to flight tracker FlightAware.
The NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system is a computer service that provides pilots with alerts about conditions that may impact the safety of their flights. This could include issues like runway lights being out, airport towers lacking required safety lights, or nearby air shows.
While NOTAM is separate from the air traffic control system that ensures safe distances between planes, it remains an essential tool for maintaining air safety.
This isn’t the first time the system has gone down; in January 2024, a similar outage briefly grounded all U.S. flights.