This story was updated at 12:41 a.m. Nov. 15, 2026.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced the nationwide ground stop of all domestic flights is lifted, after 4 1/2 hours of uncertainty caused by a telecommunications outage that resulted in thousands of delays and cancellations at most U.S. airports.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said shortly before 4 p.m. Friday that “things seem to be working, as we can say, in the right direction.”
Mullin addressed the press Friday afternoon in the briefing room at the White House alongside U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Mullin stressed that “there was no cyberattack” that took down the system.
“The public was never at danger through this process. … There was no flights at risk,” Mullin said.
Fridayʻs ground stop affected the major airports in Hawai‘i.
However, Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines flights from the West Coast were given the green light shortly before 1 p.m. from Federal Aviation Administration officials to resume flights between Anchorage to Oakland and Hawai‘i.
Flights between the state and West Coast resumed shortly after.
“Flights from the U.S. West Coast to Hawai‘i are continuing, and international flights from Honolulu have been cleared for departure,” said Hawai‘i Tourism Authority in a late Friday afternoon update.
Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines Interisland flights were not impacted; however, many flights throughout the nation were delayed and many others canceled or diverted.
“Airlines say it will take time for normal operations to resume now that the ground stop is lifted,” Hawai‘i Tourism Authority’s update said.
The airport chaos all began at 10:54 a.m. Friday, when the Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide grounding of flights for all U.S. airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said on X.
“There has been a temporary telecommunications outage. Out of an abundance of caution, all flights have been halted,” the FAA said. “Every flight has been accounted for and international flights will be handled on a case-by-case basis.”
Shelley Kunishige, spokesperson for the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation, told Big Island Now early Friday afternoon that state officials were looking at Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport, Kahului Airport on Maui and Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu to see if there was enough room to accommodate inbound trans-Pacific flights, considering none could depart during the grounding.
The national ground stop did not affect interisland flights, which communicate on a different system.
Federal officials said FAA technicians are investigating the nationwide technical issue. The problem is thought to have started at Chicago Midway International Airport and then cascaded nationwide.
Unlike the last time their was a major nationwide ground stop, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, planes on Friday were not ordered to immediately land. Pilots are able to communicate with ground controllers at airports and continue to their destinations, the AP reported.
There also was a national ground stop Jan. 11, 2023, that lasted about 2 hours. It was because of a corrupted system file in the Federal Aviation Administration Notice to Air Missions system, which alerts pilots to real-time hazards.
In that case, news reports said it was caused by a contract worker inadvertently deleting critical files.
Mullin said during a press conference Friday soon after the FAA ground stop was issued that all planes were accounted for and there was “‘no reason to believe” there is a threat to the United States.
At the time the ground stop was issued, there were about 80 flights inbound to Kona, Honolulu and Maui.
Kunishige said at the time the state Transportation Department was determining if there was enough room at the Kona airport to accommodate them or if some of them need to be redirected to larger Hilo International Airport, on the east side of the island.
FlightAware, an online aviation tracking platform, reported there were nearly 10,000 total delays and more than 5,000 total cancellations Friday of flights inside, coming into or leaving the United States.
Those numbers are for the entire day, not just after the nationwide grounding was announced.
Editor’s Note: Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation did announce a halt to all flights from the islands to the West Coast later Friday after they were allowed to resume amid the nationwide grounding, saying it was because of potential debris hazard from a SpaceX launch. No additional information was provided by the department and there was no confirmation of debris. Kauaʻi Now, therefore, removed from this story references to the later halt to flights. The website reached out Saturday to state Transportation Department officials for additional clarification but received no reply. The separate, unrelated restrictions were lifted about the same time later Friday. SpaceX did launch its Starship on Friday in Texas during the nationwide flight grounding, with the ship successfully reaching orbit and then returning Saturday to Earth. However, the first-stage booster ended up in the Gulf of Mexico following launch after an attempt to guide it back to the same launch tower was unsuccessful and automatically aborted.
