Telecom Outage Disrupts Thousands of US Flights as UN Leaders Arrive

A failed telecommunications circuit and a severed fibre-optic cable disrupted thousands of flights across the United States on Monday, forcing authorities to halt incoming traffic at major airports along the East Coast.

The disruption coincided with the arrival of about 130 world leaders and dozens of ministers in New York for the annual high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

The Federal Aviation Administration stopped incoming flights at busy East Coast airports, and at one point halted arrivals at all three major New York-area airports, along with Philadelphia, Boston and two smaller airports in the New York region.

Flight-tracking service FlightAware reported that more than 5,600 US flights were delayed or cancelled, including 1,200 at the three New York-area airports. More than 100 flights were diverted to other airports.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said an Amtrak construction crew accidentally cut into a fibre line in New Jersey, causing a telecom outage that led the FAA to pause flights in the Northeast. He said flights were resuming at New York's LaGuardia Airport but remained paused at Newark and New Jersey's Teterboro Airport. Arriving flights were again halted in Philadelphia after a ground stop was briefly lifted, while Reagan Washington National Airport stopped flights for more than an hour because of volume issues.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said a replacement circuit had failed at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control facility, which served as the primary communications link for the centre. A ground stop at Boston, which had stopped accepting flights because of spillover volume, was also lifted.

Bedford said the FAA would not restart the system for incoming flights at the affected airports until it was satisfied the airspace was safe. The loss of communications was tied to the failed circuit at the Philadelphia facility, which handles air traffic for the airports, after which authorities discovered that a backup fibre line had been accidentally cut by a construction crew in New Jersey.

"When it went to flip into the backup, we discovered that the backup fibre had a break, and that fibre break is probably 13 hours to repair. It's massive, I'm told. Meanwhile, we've got the new circuit ready to install now," Bedford said.

Newark is a major hub for United Airlines, while Philadelphia is a hub for American Airlines.

Verizon said its fibre cable running adjacent to an Amtrak rail line in New Jersey was cut, and that its facilities were fully functional up to that point. The company said it was working to repair the damaged cable and restore connectivity as quickly as possible.

In May 2025, the Philadelphia facility that guides air traffic in and out of Newark airport suffered a series of significant communications outages. The FAA said last year that a telecommunications outage had affected communications and radar displays at Philadelphia TRACON.

The incident highlighted the fragility of the ageing US air traffic control system. Congress approved $12.5 billion last year to address the system and boost controller hiring, following decades of complaints over airport congestion, flight delays and a series of technology issues in recent years.

Duffy said Congress needed to approve another $17.5 billion to finish the job. "This is unacceptable in America," he said.