The United States announced, on Friday, the opening of its airspace to air traffic, after a decision to suspend flights at all airports in the country that lasted for hours, following a malfunction in the air traffic control systems, which American officials attributed to the obsolescence of the devices used and data overload.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said during a press briefing at the White House that US airspace "reopened" at 8:15 p.m. local time, warns that it will take some time for travel to return to normal, and that it will not be possible for all flights to take off immediately, adding: "Traffic will be slow."
Duffy explained that the devices were "loaded with data, which led to their malfunction", noting that the old devices had broken down, and given the fact that the incident raises questions about the need for funding to modernize the air traffic control system. However, he stressed that the flights are still safe for Americans. The nationwide grounding was the first since January 2023, when a central computer system of the Federal Aviation Administration crashed, and the second since the grounding following the September 11, 2001 attacks.
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