Trump administration warns of continued flight disruptions for an additional day

US President Donald Trump’s administration announced on Sunday that the disruption to air traffic caused by the grounding of flights could last for an additional day, after authorities had hoped for a gradual return to normal operations by Sunday evening. The nationwide halt in US air travel on Friday was triggered by a glitch during maintenance work on communication lines.

Hundreds of additional flights were canceled, raising questions about how such a large-scale disruption could occur in the world’s largest economy, a country that prides itself on technological superiority.

Officials attributed the major glitch on Friday to errors during the update of communication cables used for air traffic control.

Trump broke his unusually prolonged silence on the grounding decision, but confined himself to blaming his predecessor, Joe Biden, for the crisis.

In his first comments on the matter since US authorities halted all flights for several hours on Friday due to a technical update failure, Trump described the Biden administration’s handling of the aviation sector as a “disaster.”

Writing on his platform, Truth Social, he said, “They ruined everything they touched. Huge amounts of money were spent without proper management, making an old and dilapidated system worse than it was when they started.”

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Bryan Bedford had announced on Saturday that air traffic would return to normal by the end of Sunday, after millions of Americans were stranded at airports.

Speaking to ABC News, Bedford said, “Air traffic in the airspace will begin to return to normal today, but a full return will likely occur tomorrow.”

He added, “What happened on Friday left aircraft and crews out of their usual positions, so it takes some time to get things back on track.”

The nationwide halt on Friday left travelers across the country in a state of suspense and confusion, with some passengers being removed from planes just moments before takeoff, while airline staff appeared unable to explain the situation.

Bedford firmly rejected calls for his resignation over the chaos in the aviation sector, emphasizing that he inherited a highly outdated air traffic control infrastructure, which he said included radar equipment dating back to the 1960s.

In an interview with CNN, he said, “When work is done and mistakes happen, I am, of course, the responsible official. But I must also acknowledge the state of the system I inherited.”

By Sunday, the number of flights canceled within the US, or bound for or departing from the US, had reached 1,460, according to FlightAware, a flight-tracking website.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy explained on Saturday that the decision to ground flights on Friday followed maintenance work aimed at replacing old copper wires with high-speed fiber optic cables, which caused “issues” with communication to aircraft and radar data.

This was only the second time in history that a decision was made to ground all flights in US airspace, one of the busiest in the world, since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The decision not only disrupted US air travel but also raised serious concerns about the country’s aging infrastructure.

Duffy called for $50 billion to be allocated to develop and modernize the air traffic control system, urging the Congress, which holds the power to approve government spending, to “rise to the occasion.”

However, Democrats quickly responded that the Republican-controlled Congress, led by Trump, could have already taken this step.