What to know about flights after the US nationwide ground stop

Detailed summary

Officials said they expect airline schedules to fully recover by the end of the day Sunday after Friday's ground stop.

Officials said they expect airline schedules to fully recover by the end of the day Sunday after a nationwide ground stop that was initiated out of caution caused massive travel disruptions.

The longest flight stoppage in 25 years lasted more than four hours and ended around 8:15 p.m. ET Friday, allowing some domestic flights to take off from U.S. airports.

Of the 41,000 flights scheduled Saturday, more than 6,600 were canceled, according to FlightAware. Just over 1,300 of the more than 26,000 flights scheduled for Sunday were canceled, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics firm. That amounts to about 5.2% of scheduled flights. Prior to Friday, the average cancellation rate for U.S. departures was 3.4%.

But officials said the U.S. airspace was safe and operational and would recover well ahead of the Thanksgiving travel rush.

Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication the failure was related to a cyberattack and no lives were at risk.

Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bryan Bedford said the system was stable Saturday. Several thousand flights were able to fly after the ground stop, but ultimately, some 12,000 scheduled flights were unable to take off Friday, he said.

Bedford offered an apology for stranded travelers and thanked air traffic controllers, pilots and flight attendants for managing the fallout. He said officials were confident the system is operating safely or else they would keep airplanes on the ground.

American Airlines said in a statement Saturday night that some individual flights might still be canceled as it continued working to fully restore its operations. It urged travelers to check their flight statuses.

Airlines are obligated to offer free rebooking on another flight or a full refund if a flight is canceled.

Opening of the article, excerpted from The Boston Globe. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.