If you’ll be flying domestically within the United States today or within the next few days, there is a massive update you need to be aware of.

We’ve seen some serious travel complications lately, from winter storms and other situations that caused tremendous amounts of cancelations and delays with Southwest Airlines, to luggage mishaps, and more. But today (January 11th) a massive issue hit airlines across the country.

UPDATE: The ground stop has been lifted and air traffic is returning to “normal” gradually across the U.S. Flight Aware continues to show, however, that over 4,000 flights have been delayed and over 700 have been canceled within, into, or out of the U.S.

Update 5: Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted.

We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem

— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023

According to NBC News, flights across the United States were GROUNDED this morning (January 11th). What caused this issue? Well, it appears the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered all domestic departures to be delayed until 9AM to allow them to check certain safety information. The FAA experienced a computer outage that caused this situation.

Via Twitter, the FAA shared that they were working to restore the “Notice to Air Missions System” and that operations across the “National Airspace System” had been impacted.

The FAA is working to restore its Notice to Air Missions System. We are performing final validation checks and reloading the system now.

Operations across the National Airspace System are affected.

We will provide frequent updates as we make progress.

— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023

They later posted an update indicating that some functions had started to come back on line, but the system’s operations remained limited.

The President of the United States had been briefed on the situation and though there is no evidence at this time of a cyberattack, the Department of Transportation has been directed to conduct a full investigation into what caused this issue.

The President has been briefed by the Secretary of Transportation this morning on the FAA system outage. There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes. The FAA will provide regular updates.

— Karine Jean-Pierre Archived (@PressSec46) January 11, 2023

As of 7:19AM (ET) the FAA posted an update indicating that they were still working to fully restore the system and that they had ordered airlines to “pause all domestic departures until 9 a.m. Eastern Time” to allow them to “validate the integrity of flight and safety information.”

Update 3: The FAA is still working to fully restore the Notice to Air Missions system following an outage.⁰⁰The FAA has ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures until 9 a.m. Eastern Time to allow the agency to validate the integrity of flight and safety information.

— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023

According to Flight Aware, over 2,000 flights within, into, or out of the U.S. had been delayed as of 7:51AM ET. 

UPDATE: That number has since increased to over 4,000 flights delayed.

UPDATE: The FAA has indicated that all flights in the air are safe to land, but pilots are directed to check the NOTAM before they fly. Additionally, the FAA has indicated that they are “making progress” in restoring the system and departures are resuming at 2 airports due to air traffic congestion in those areas. They still expect that departures will be able to resume in other airports at 9AM.

Update 4: The FAA is making progress in restoring its Notice to Air Missions system following an overnight outage. Departures are resuming at @EWRairport and @ATLairport due to air traffic congestion in those areas. We expect departures to resume at other airports at 9 a.m. ET.

— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023

NBC News shares that the system impacted is the one that “sends out important real-time flight hazards and restrictions to all commercial airline pilots.” United Airlines has delayed domestic flights until at least 10AM ET.

NBC News has also reported that all flights by American Airlines from Paris have been delayed until further notice. But other international airlines, like Air France, have indicated that their flights to the U.S. are going forward as planned and are not impacted by the FAA situation.

Given the number of delays that have been caused by this situation, it could take some time for the remaining flights of the day (and perhaps the upcoming days) to get back on track.

If you have a flight planned for this morning, be sure to check with your airline for updates. We’ll continue to watch for more news and let you know what we see.

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Has your flight been impacted by this issue? Let us know in the comments.