U.S.-bound flights from Vancouver International Airport and flights over the U.S. are being delayed or cancelled Friday due to a mass grounding, the airport said. These delays come after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration announced the grounding of all flights in that country due to “extraordinary circumstances” just after 3 p.m. PCT. “YVR is aware of a nationwide technology issue in the United States that has caused a ground stop for all flights to the United States at this time,” the airport said, in a statement to CTV News. The FAA said this stemmed from a “temporary telecommunications outage,” and said every flight had been accounted for. Sean Duffy, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, said FAA technicians were investigating the issue, and later claimed the ground stop happened because the country’s “air traffic control system is operating on decades-old, analog equipment.” Just before 7 p.m., the FAA lifted the ground stop and said airplane departures in the U.S. could resume. Earlier in the evening, Air Canada said it has cancelled all flights to and from the U.S. for the rest of Friday evening, and said flights between Canada, the Caribbean and South America over the U.S. may also be impacted. Porter Airlines issued a similar cancellation notice and asked travellers to check their flight status before heading to the airport. WestJet asked travellers to do the same. Nav Canada said its systems were operating normally and confirmed there was no impact to its operations. YVR initially said domestic flights within Canada wouldn’t be impacted by the FAA’s grounding announcement, and recommended travellers check their flight status with their airline or on the airport’s website before arriving. Vancouver’s airport released a follow-up statement warning that, aside from flights to U.S. destinations, some domestic and international flights could be at risk of delay or cancellation as well. “Airlines are adjusting accordingly,” the statement reads. At around 4 p.m. PCT, YVR’s website showed flights to San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, and Dallas delayed, and other flights to Phoenix, Seattle and San Francisco cancelled. A pair of flights bound for Los Angeles and Minneapolis, meanwhile, said they were boarding—beginning a trend of varied results for flights headed south of the border that continued into the evening. All arriving flights from the U.S. that weren’t already in the air at the time of the FAA’s announcement appeared to have been delayed as well. Just after 7 p.m., Air Canada released a statement in response to the ground stop being lifted, saying operations would gradually return to normal, but flight impacts would continue into Saturday. Porter Airlines said it would “likely take through the weekend for schedules to return to normal.” YVR released its own follow-up statement saying it anticipated continued cancellations and delays as airlines work to restore their networks. With files from The Canadian Press
