FAA computer problem causes flight delays

“The FAA is continuing to diagnose the cause of yesterday’s problem, and has not seen a reoccurrence of the original issues”, Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the agency, said Sunday in an e-mailed statement.

“There are widespread impacts on airline flight operations throughout the regions”, said Jonathan Dean, a spokesman for Baltimore’s airport tells the AP.

As those airports are responsible for a great share of East Coast air traffic, the glitch caused cancellations, delays and reroutes, the FAA said.

Another passenger said, “We kept asking questions and then all of a sudden we heard an announcement saying our flight was cancelled”.

Andrew Robinson was supposed to have a layover in Baltimore before heading home to Chicago, only to find the flight canceled after being delayed multiple times. Airport officials have not commented on how long the flights will remain grounded. Once they go below that altitude, they are directed to airports by controllers at Terminal Radar Approach Control Facilities, called TRACONs.

That is affecting flights leaving LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports, according to FlightAware’s online tracker.

As aviation officials worked Saturday to shift the usual control of flight-routing around the Washington area, angry travelers took to social media, where the malfunction was dubbed “Flypocalypse”. It said an estimate of the number of flights delayed or canceled was not yet available.

“This is a really, really big deal”, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said at the press conference, adding that ERAM is “the backbone” of the NextGen project.

“I’m just disappointed because I paid for a ticket to get to Reagan in a timely manner”, he said. He said he planned to make the 14-hour drive back to the DC area instead. Delays there exceeded one hour.

His flight was delayed two hours after all the passengers boarded.