US Northeast airport tech outage grounds hundreds of flights

Hundreds of flights were cancelled in the US Northeast due to technical problems at a key regional air traffic control centre, as every major airport in the New York City area ground to a halt for several hours Monday just as numerous foreign leaders were flying to the United Nations General Assembly.

However, President Donald Trump's flight from Washington to New York was able to depart as scheduled.

The technical problems happened at the same Federal Aviation Administration facility in Philadelphia that caused numerous disruptions at Newark Liberty International Airport in the spring of 2025.

Regional control centres like these have two lines that carry data in and out: the primary and the backup. The FAA said a circuit on the primary failed Monday morning, and when the system tried to switch to the backup, workers discovered that the fibre optic line had been cut. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said an Amtrak construction crew was to blame.

The outage affected flights for Philadelphia as well as Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports.