Five-Hour U.S. Departure Halt Disrupts 11,000 Flights and Weighs on Airline Stocks
Key Facts
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration halted departures from airports across the country for about five hours on the evening of November 13, disrupting airline schedules and pushing sector stocks lower in the final minutes of the session. The Associated Press said most flights were not allowed to take off during the halt, which was lifted Friday evening. The report described the incident as the longest nationwide halt in 25 years. U.S. officials said new technologies added to the air traffic control system had strained older systems and caused intermittent gaps in communications and radar. The measure covered departures from U.S. airports nationwide, while aircraft already in the air continued to land.
The volume of scheduled traffic put the disruption in front of a large number of travelers: 11,000 flights carrying more than 1.5 million passengers were scheduled to depart U.S. airports after 4 p.m. Eastern time that day. During the halt, more than 3,000 flights landed safely, according to the homeland security official. But safe landings did not prevent planes from being diverted: at least 827 flights had been diverted by 7:05 p.m. Eastern time. 670 flights were sent back to their airports of origin, while 157 were directed to other airports, according to Cirium data cited by the Associated Press. Officials said a return to full operations could take days because aircraft and crews had been displaced from their usual locations.
The transportation secretary described the scale of the drop in air traffic during those hours, saying 3,500 aircraft were in the air when the halt began and that the number had fallen to fewer than 400 aircraft in the airspace in his latest update. He said traffic would return to normal slowly. The incident follows a previous nationwide halt in January 2023, when the administration stopped domestic flights for less than two hours because of a failure in a key computer system. Reuters reported that the November halt was the second nationwide departure stoppage since the September 11, 2001, attacks, while the Associated Press described it as the first halt of this kind since January 2023. The differing descriptions highlight that the comparison concerns previous nationwide departure stoppages, not isolated operational delays.
The disruption weighed on airline stocks during Friday’s regular session, but losses varied among carriers. American Airlines shares closed down 1% at $13.17, while Delta fell less, according to Dow Jones Newswires via MarketScreener. The NYSE Arca Airline Index closed down 1.4% in the November 13 session, according to Reuters via DavdScource. The index’s move showed the pressure spreading across the sector, while Delta’s loss was smaller than American’s during the session. Both stocks ended trading amid an operational disruption affecting departures nationwide, rather than a decision specific to either company.
Delta said its issued travel waiver covers travel on November 13 and 14, 2026, systemwide, and allows travelers to rebook and receive a new ticket through November 19. The policy gives affected travelers additional time to make arrangements after the day of the halt, as disruption to aircraft and crew positioning could continue for days. On infrastructure, the homeland security secretary said a full upgrade of the aviation system could cost $50 billion. The Associated Press reported that Congress approved $12.5 billion for the project the previous year and that the White House is seeking an additional $30 billion to complete the upgrades. The transportation secretary said he could not guarantee the same scenario would not happen again and called for emergency funding to upgrade aviation safety infrastructure.