How to Check Your Flight Status After the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Lifted the No-Landing Order at All Airports
Update, 8:41 p.m.: The Federal Aviation Administration announced the end of the ground stop .
On Friday afternoon, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered the suspension of flights at all US airports . If you’re planning to fly this afternoon or evening, or if your friends or family are planning to do the same, you’re likely concerned about tracking your flights. While much remains unknown, there are tools that can help you track flights at this time:
How to track flights during the nationwide grounding.
There are several ways to track flights, whether you have the flight number or not. If you do have the flight number, the fastest way is to search for it on Google: Google will display your real-time flight tracking at the top of the results page. You can also go to the airline’s official website to track your flight: for example, United Airlines has a flight tracking service where you can enter route information or the flight number. Most, if not all, airlines have a similar tool you can use.
Alternatively, you can use a website or service that tracks all flights. FlightAware is one such website, and it has a flight tracking feature that allows you to search for flights—provided you know the departure and destination. If you have the flight number, your iPhone can help: you can enter the flight number in Spotlight search to see real-time tracking, or you can text the flight number to a contact and then tap the link that appears below the number to see the flight tracker.
Why did the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issue a nationwide ground stop ban order?
At this point, the exact cause is unclear. According to the agency, “The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has imposed a nationwide grounding for all U.S. airports due to communications issues affecting several air traffic control centers,” but the FAA has not disclosed what caused the communications issues or when the grounding is expected to be lifted. The grounding order came one day after a massive outage at Microsoft , which disrupted services for users of Outlook, Teams, and other Microsoft products. It also came one day after Ars Technica reported that the FAA is rolling out an AI-powered tool for air traffic management nationwide.
This is only the third time in U.S. history that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued such an order—the first after 9/11 and the second in January 2023 due to a problem with the pilot alert system; the most recent grounding lasted about 90 minutes.