OAN Staff Blake Wolf
4:07 PM – Sunday, May 11, 2025
Hundreds of flights were delayed on Mother’s Day at one of the world’s busiest airports in Atlanta due to a “runway equipment issue,” stemming from an outage, according to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials.
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The interruption at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport prompted the delay of over 200 departure flights, along with the delay of over 250 incoming flights, according to FlightAware, a flight-tracking website.
“An equipment outage at ATL’s Air Traffic Control Tower is currently causing delay for inbound and outbound aircraft,” an FAA spokesperson stated.
According to the FAA, a ground delay is put in place to manage congestion and traffic flow within an airport.
A Delta spokesperson confirmed the ground delay, explaining: “Given that ATL is our main hub – plus, volume of flights – the ground delay is ensuring that operations at the airport can continue to run smoothly.”
In addition to the mass delay in Atlanta, Newark’s airport also saw delays on Sunday, reportedly due to a “telecommunications issue at Philadelphia TRACON Area C, which guides aircraft in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport airspace,” according to the FAA.
“The FAA briefly slowed aircraft in and out of the airport while we ensured redundancies were working as designed,” the statement continued.
The telecommunication issue in Newark saw the cancellation of nearly 80 flights, along with the delay of 60 more.
The malfunction at the Newark international airport follows after a radar and radio outage on Friday, along with a similar issue taking place at the end of last month, prompting Transportation Secretary Sean Fuddy to reduce the amount of flights going in and out of the airport.
“In the next several weeks, we’re going to have this reduced capacity at Newark,” he stated. “I’m convening a meeting of all the airlines that serve Newark, get them to agree on how they’re going to reduce capacity.”
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