Cancellations and delays continued to affect passengers flying in and out of Chicago’s two airports Saturday, fallout from Friday’s nationwide ground stop. Federal officials said travel should be back to normal by Sunday.
For United passenger Abdul Sankoh of Manassas, Virginia, the disruption meant spending more than seven hours aboard a plane stuck on the tarmac, missing his scheduled arrival at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., and spending another four hours Saturday morning waiting in line to speak with an airline customer service representative.
Sankoh had been scheduled to depart O’Hare Airport for Dulles at 2:21 p.m. Friday. He was aboard the flight when the ground stop was announced, sat on the tarmac and did not get off the plane until about 9 p.m.
After a night in Chicago, Sankoh returned to O’Hare at 6:30 a.m. Saturday to wait in another line, hoping to rebook his flight home to his 3- and 4-year-old daughters. He bought them a bag of Garrett’s popcorn as a Chicago treat Friday, but had been eating it since to keep him going through the over-24-hour delay.
“It’s extremely difficult,” he said. “I have daughters and I have to see them.”
By about 5:30 p.m. Saturday, O’Hare, the busiest airport in the country based on plane traffic, 685 flights had been canceled, along with 71 canceled flights at Midway Airport, according to FlightAware. The website reported 700 delays Saturday at O’Hare and 116 delays at Midway.
Scheduled arrivals fared worse with about a quarter of those expected Saturday being canceled. Midway International has had 68 canceled flights Saturday, representing about 12% of departures.
To help prioritize delayed departures, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a temporary ground stop for incoming United flights to O’Hare Saturday morning, according to a United spokesperson. That ground stop ended at 10 a.m.
For stranded travelers, the disruption also came with mounting expenses, from unexpected hotel stays to repeated rebooking costs and the prospect of paying for alternative transportation.
Hotel rooms near O’Hare ranged from about $150 for Sankoh to as much as $600 for passengers like Don Collins. The Northern California resident was en route to a family gathering to celebrate his six grandchildren’s birthdays, when he was stuck in Chicago.
His flight was canceled Friday and again Saturday morning, and he missed the family celebration.
Collins said he spent $600 on an overnight stay at the Hilton and considered taking an Amtrak train across the country but said the trip would have cost him $3,800.
“The financial impact, obviously, I’ve had to rebook three times,” Collins said. “So I hope my credit card handles it.”
Shipping delays may affect package deliveries
The ground stop, which started about 2:30 p.m. Friday and lasted more than four hours, may affect timing of package deliveries.
The U.S. Postal Service and UPS posted notices on their websites Saturday that customers may experience delays.
Airlines slowly recovering
The U.S. air travel schedule should be back to normal by the end of Sunday, two days after what was the nation’s longest ground stop in 25 years, Bryan Bedford, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, said. He said airlines “will still have delays and cancellations” Saturday but promised that the “worst is behind us.”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters Saturday that a contractor had been replacing a section of the system’s old copper wire with new fiber wire, and that work somehow caused the system overload, leading to Friday’s ground stop that lasted more than four hours. The work caused “intermittent” communications and radar gaps, according to Trump administration officials.
Duffy said officials were investigating whether contractor “incompetence” or a faulty router was the cause.
“Our contractor didn’t meet the moment or the equipment didn’t meet the moment,” Duffy said.
The contractor, L3Harris Technologies Inc., released a statement Saturday saying it is “supporting the FAA in its investigation” and “takes the nationwide ground stop and its impact on travelers, airlines and air traffic operations seriously.”
The nationwide stop was the first since January 2023, when a key FAA computer system that sends notices to pilots malfunctioned, and the second since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Andrew Charlton, an aviation consultant, said Friday’s stoppage affected about a quarter of the 45,000 flights in the U.S. each day.
“The knock-on effect of that is incredible,” said Charlton, managing director of Aviation Advocacy. “The aircraft doesn’t just fly from A to B and back … and then stop. It then moves onto C and then over to E and around and around and around. It is, of course, exacerbated if you’re talking about long-haul flights, international flights over the Atlantic or over the Pacific.”
Airlines are obligated to offer free rebooking on another flight for travelers who want to continue their journey, or a refund if their flight was canceled and they decide not to take the trip.
American Airlines said in a statement to the Sun-Times that travelers should check their flight status before heading to the airport. The airline also indicated that passengers with flexible travel plans can change reservations or receive a refund.
Customers traveling today should monitor their flight status on the American app or at aa.com before heading to the airport. For those with flexible travel plans, American has issued a travel alert that allows customers to change their reservation or receive a refund.
Duffy reiterated Saturday that no one was in any danger as more than 3,000 flights in the air at the time of the grounding order landed safely.
Trump administration officials also blamed Congress for failing to approve more funding to replace the decades-old technology that helps manage the U.S. air traffic. Duffy said that 70% of the system had been replaced with fiber optic wire but that his agency also needs new air traffic control towers and runways.
The FAA has replaced thousands of old copper wires with fiber optic lines and upgraded hundreds of radio systems as part of an overhaul that began last year after Congress approved $12.5 billion in funding. Duffy and the White House are pushing for $30 billion more to complete the work.
Passengers saw their Saturday flights canceled
Even passengers booked on Saturday flights continued to feel the effects of Friday’s ground stop.
Kali and Pernell Thomas, who live in South Holland, arrived at the airport Saturday morning expecting to fly to New Orleans for Pernell’s birthday. They thought they had avoided the worst of the disruption, but their flight was canceled after they had already gone through security.
“We figured if they were going to cancel it, they would’ve known way ahead of time,” Kali Thomas said. “Not just two hours before.”
The couple said they were told the next available flight to New Orleans would not leave until Wednesday. “That’s the day we’re coming back,” Thomas said.
The couple will likely reschedule the entire trip and seek a refund, she said. In the meantime, they were trying to retrieve their checked luggage, which contained medication.
“If they could’ve told us before we got there,” she said. “Because that’s a lot of money lost.”
In their 60 years of living in Chicago, the couple said, this was their first canceled flight at O’Hare.
“I’m going to go ahead and pull the trigger on getting that annual trip insurance, definitely,” Thomas said.
In Peoria, Illinois Comic Con faced a double whammy — the ground stop and an unrelated discovery of a bomb. The location of the event, the Peoria Civic Center, remained closed Saturday because of evacuations after a bomb was found Friday at an ethanol plant.
Meanwhile, guests and celebrities were struggling to get flights for the two-day Comic Con, according to event organizers. They announced midday that Saturday had been canceled and that Sunday was in doubt.
Associated Press contributed to this story.
Cancellations, delays at O’Hare, Midway continue Saturday in fallout from FAA ground stop 2026
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