Pearson airport advises U.S.-bound travellers to check flight status after FAA system outage

Canadian airlines and airports experienced delays with flights headed to the United States after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) suffered a system outage forcing it to ground all domestic flights for several hours on Jan. 11.

WestJet Airlines Ltd. said five flights to U.S. cities from Toronto and one from Edmonton were delayed due to the FAA computer outage. The airline, the country’s second largest, said none of its flights were cancelled.

“All guests travelling to and from the U.S. today are advised to check their flights status (online),” WestJet said in an email.

Air Canada, the foreign carrier with the most flights into the United States, said its trans-border operations would be affected by the outage on Wednesday, but it was too early to determine the full impact, Reuters reported. Canada’s largest carrier said it will put in place a “goodwill policy” for affected customers to change their travel plans.

The airline also encouraged customers travelling to the United States to check their flights on their site.

Vancouver International Airport said it was seeing delays as a result of the outage and advised passengers travelling to the U.S. to check with their airline before arriving at the airport.

“We are operating at 98 per cent of our planned schedule,” the airport said on Twitter.

Similarly, Calgary International Airport said it experienced “minimal impact” due to the outage, confirming that no flights were cancelled.

“Any U.S. departure out of YYC was delayed until after 7:30 a.m. when the FAA lifted the ground stop,” a spokesperson for the Calgary Airport Authority said in an emailed statement.

Meanwhile, Canada’s busiest airport also advised passengers travelling to the United States to check their flight status before heading there. Toronto Pearson International Airport sent the notice to travellers via its official Twitter account on Wednesday morning.

The affected FAA system alerts pilots of closed runways, equipment outages and other potential hazards along a flight route or at a location that could impact the flight. Officials said the system failed at about 2 a.m. ET.

The FAA said early Wednesday that it was working to restore its Notice to Air Missions System and that operations across the U.S. national airspace system were affected. It ordered airlines to halt all domestic departures while it tested whether crews had managed to restore the system and bring it back online.

Before 7 a.m., the agency said some functions were beginning return, although airspace system operations remained limited. It said all flights currently in the sky were safe to land.

At 9 a.m., U.S. flights were slowly beginning to resume departures and a ground stop was lifted.

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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said there’s currently no evidence of a cyberattack but a full investigation into the causes of the outage will be conducted.

According to tracking website FlightAware.com, there were almost 8,000 delays within, into or out of the U.S. on Wednesday and over 1,000 cancellations.

Additional reporting by Reuters

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