National air traffic stoppage disrupts travel across Bexar County and beyond

U.S. authorities ordered all aircraft to land immediately on Friday afternoon, grounding thousands of flights for more than four hours. The interruption followed a technology upgrade on the national air traffic control system that overloaded older equipment. Administration officials stated that the upgrade caused intermittent gaps in communications and radar. By Saturday morning, the Federal Aviation Administration reported that air travel had smoothed out. Administrator Bryan Bedford said airline schedules should return to normal by late Sunday.

The aviation halt occurred while a separate issue affected Microsoft services. The company announced Saturday that its systems were fully restored. Microsoft stated that the problem arose from a network capacity upgrade that surfaced after a recent change. The outage impacted millions of users worldwide. Both the FAA and Microsoft said there were no signs of malicious activity behind the disruptions.

Passengers at airports across the country expressed uncertainty about the causes. Chuck Amasio, 68, of Rahway, New Jersey, missed his flight from Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday. He spent the night in a hotel and returned to the airport Saturday morning. Amasio said the week's events made him consider if conflicts were being fought by shutting down airspace or power grids.

Maxine Gustafson, 34, a physician assistant from Minneapolis, was at Chicago O'Hare Airport on Friday. She waited in line for a rental car to get home from a training session. Gustafson said the mishaps made her feel afraid and helpless. She questioned whether the issues were a cyberattack because she felt she had no control over the situation.

Tori Perkins, 34, was at San Diego International Airport on Saturday. She was on a layover to visit family in Florida. Perkins noted that 11 of 62 flights at Terminal 2 were canceled and 11 were delayed that morning. She said she did not necessarily believe what the government said because many people were offering different explanations. Perkins was not surprised that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy requested tens of billions of dollars for further upgrades to the air traffic system.

The FAA has replaced thousands of copper wire connections with fiber optic lines and upgraded hundreds of radio systems. This work began last year after Congress approved $12.5 billion in funding. The White House is pushing for an additional $30 billion to complete the overhaul. Secretary Duffy made a plea on Friday for that additional funding to modernize the outdated infrastructure.

Corbyn Wascher, 37, was stuck on a tarmac at Charlotte Douglas International Airport for four hours on Friday. He was returning to Moline, Illinois, from Miami. Wascher said the passengers on his American Airlines flight were cordial and the staff handed out water and snacks. He praised the stewardesses for their effort despite the stress. In Newark, Caroline Ruiz waited for a meal after her flight to Australia was canceled. She noted that the Microsoft outage the day before had given her a free day of work.