Travelers at San Diego International Airport were advised to expect continued delays and check with their airlines Saturday after Friday’s roughly four-hour nationwide ground stop for all air traffic.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s order was lifted Friday at about 5:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, but widespread delays and cancellations were expected to continue affecting travelers until late Sunday.

“The FAA has lifted the ground stop; however, flights remain impacted nationwide. We suggest checking with your airline before heading to the airport for the latest updates,” SAN officials said.

A nationwide ground stop issued by the FAA delayed hundreds of flights at San Diego International Airport on Friday due to a national communications outage.

“As of 1 p.m. today, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) activated a nationwide ground stop due to an equipment outage,” said San Diego Airport spokesperson Nicole Hall. “Flights are currently not departing from the San Diego International Airport. Arriving flights will continue to land as space allows.”

According to FlightAware, an aviation data company, San Diego’s airport reported 297 delayed flights and 166 cancellations due to the ground stop, which was lifted Friday night after a five-hour stretch when most flights were not allowed to take off from airports in the United States.

Hall told Times of San Diego that some flights were diverted from San Diego International to regional airports due to gates being full.

The FAA notice said the ground stop was issued “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.” The order initially was expected to last through at least 8 p.m. PT Friday.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated FAA technicians are currently investigating.

An alert sent to US airports and shared online by the flight-tracking site Flightradar24 stated the stop was issued “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.”

The alert noted that all traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice, and “inbound international flights will be managed on a case-by-case basis.”

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there is no indication yet of a nefarious act behind FAA communications issue.

He also downplayed comparisons to the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001, saying, “This isn’t the same comparison to 9/11. That’s a road I won’t go down.”

This is the first nationwide stoppage since January 2023, when an FAA computer system malfunctioned. The 22 Air Route Traffic Control Centers are located across the country and include Palmdale. They control flight traffic above 18,000 feet.

The government has been working to overhaul the outdated technology that air traffic controllers rely on since Congress approved $12.5 billion for the project last year. Miles of old copper wires have been replaced with fiber-optic lines, and airports across the country are gradually replacing old radio systems.

In June 2025, Duffy held a news conference at San Diego’s airport to stump not just for more investment in the air traffic control system, but for an overhaul. A former air traffic controller who attended called the current system  “antiquated.”

Duffy argued that the work, which included hardware and software improvements at the San Diego control tower, “can’t take a decade, this can’t take six years. We have to move now and move fast.”

Updated 7:20 p.m. Nov. 13, 2026.

Associated Press and City News Service contributed to this report.