FAA Ground Stop Hits Newark, Philadelphia Airports

A failure at the FAA’s Philadelphia air traffic control facility has halted arrivals at Newark Liberty, Philadelphia International and Teterboro airports. Flights headed to JFK and LaGuardia are also being stopped, while some departures continue at a slower pace with lengthy delays.

The facility coordinates aircraft using those airports and began handling Newark and Teterboro traffic in 2024. The FAA described the disruption as severe enough to require a broad grounding, but had not estimated when normal service would return. Flighty reported that 21 Newark flights had been canceled by midday, while at least 50 arriving flights were redirected elsewhere. Another 23 flights were canceled before takeoff, and roughly 150 Newark departures showed major delays.

The outage followed a shorter Northeast air traffic problem on Sunday. United offered a temporary rebooking waiver for tickets purchased by September 20. Separately, the FAA is upgrading its national system, including replacing 63% of copper wiring with fiber or 5G connections. The agency has set aside $12.5 billion for the work, with most upgrades expected by 2028.