US flights to resume as normal: FAA NOTAM

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Wednesday issued an update regarding progress in restoring its Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system following an overnight suspension.

The authority gave an update about the resumption of departures at the Newark Liberty International Airport and Atlanta Airport following “air traffic congestion” in those areas.

“We expect departures to resume at other airports at 9am ET,” the FAA wrote on its official Twitter account.

The US FAA earlier, ordered a temporary halt to all domestic flight departures on Wednesday, after a major system outage that disrupted air traffic across the country.

Airlines and airports were left scrambling with news of the nationwide pause, as the White House said there was no immediate evidence of a cyberattack.

The FAA halted flights until 9am (1400 GMT) but said it expected departures to resume at that time and that takeoffs had already begun at Newark and Atlanta airports due to air traffic congestion.

A key process, it said, had been "impaired" in an outage of its NOTAM, which provides information to flight crews about hazards, changes to airport facilities and other essential information.

The pause, it said, would allow "the agency to validate the integrity of flight and safety information."

Speaking to reporters, President Joe Biden said that he had been briefed by the transportation secretary and that "aircraft can still land safely, just not take off right now."

"They don't know what the cause of it is, they expect in a couple of hours they'll have a good sense of what caused it and will respond at that time," Biden said.

"The FAA is still working to fully restore the Notice to Air Missions system following an outage," the agency said in a statement, adding that while "some functions are beginning to come back online, National Airspace System operations remain limited."

— Additional input from AFP