Flights were disrupted across the US Northeast on Monday after a key air traffic control connection failed and a backup fiber optic cable was cut during construction work, forcing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to temporarily halt some incoming flights at major airports including Newark Liberty, Philadelphia and Teterboro.The disruption was linked to communication problems at a Philadelphia air traffic control facility that handles traffic for several major airports in the region. The FAA said some incoming flights were temporarily halted because of the issues.FlightAware, a flight tracking website, said more than 300 flights at Newark and Philadelphia, or about 15%, had been delayed. Newark is a major hub for United Airlines, while Philadelphia is a hub for American Airlines.The technical problems also forced a number of flights to be diverted to other airports. Flightradar24 said flights at Newark were being delayed by an average of 112 minutes.
Backup fiber cable cut during construction
FAA administrator Brian Bedford said a primary circuit at the Philadelphia air traffic control facility failed on Monday morning. The agency later discovered that a backup fiber optic line had been severed between New Brunswick and Newark, New Jersey.The FAA said it was working to restore the key connection by installing a new circuit on the primary line while also repairing the backup fiber optic cable.“That fiber break is probably 13 hours to repair. It’s massive,” Bedford said, according to a video posted online by a CBS transportation reporter.The primary circuit that failed is already scheduled to be replaced as part of a wider overhaul of the US air traffic control system.By early afternoon, some flights had begun to resume at LaGuardia and Philadelphia, but significant delays were expected to continue through the rest of Monday. Some airlines were also allowing passengers to change flights without paying fees.
Previous disruptions at Philadelphia facility
The latest disruption occurred at the same FAA facility that was linked to major flight disruptions at Newark Liberty International Airport in May 2025, when the facility suffered a series of communications outages.The FAA also said last year that a telecommunications outage at the Philadelphia facility had affected communications and radar displays used by air traffic controllers.The problems have renewed attention on the ageing US air traffic control infrastructure. Congress approved $12.5 billion last year to address the system’s ageing technology and increase the number of air traffic controllers, following years of complaints about congestion, flight delays and technical failures.The disruption also coincided with the FAA’s launch of testing for a new computer system that uses artificial intelligence to predict scheduling conflicts and weather-related problems and help controllers reroute traffic.The AI system was initially being tested only in the Washington, D.C., area and did not appear to be connected to Monday’s outages.
