TAMPA, Fla. (WFTS) — Air travel at Tampa International Airport was still struggling to recover Saturday, one day after a more than 4-hour nationwide FAA ground stop — only the third in modern aviation history.
The FAA said an overload on older technology caused its telecommunications and radar systems to crash Friday night. While airspace returned to normal, the ripple effects left thousands of passengers stranded and searching for ways home.
"At least one of our remote FAA locations, a contractor was doing routine maintenance to switch telecommunication lines from old copper wire, and they were bringing it over to fiber," said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. "What we're working to determine was whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error or installator error from L3 Harris, or did they install a faulty router."
WATCH: FAA ground stop leaves Tampa International passengers stranded
Of the 483 flights scheduled out of Tampa International on Saturday, at least half were canceled or delayed.
One of those passengers caught in the chaos was Sean Hartridge, who had originally planned to fly out of Orlando. His flight was canceled just before he arrived at the airport, and his next available option wasn't until Monday at 4:30 p.m.
"On my way to the airport, the flight got canceled like 10 minutes before I arrived to the airport," Hartridge said.
Rather than wait, Hartridge took matters into his own hands.
"I opened up my Kayak app and started searching for flights and found one with Breeze leaving out of Tampa, straight shot to Rochester today," Hartridge said. "So I booked that, and then I booked my one-hour Lyft ride from Orlando airport to Tampa."
That Lyft ride cost him $99. And even if his original flight is reimbursed, Hartridge pointed out there are other costs no one will cover.
"Nobody's going to compensate me for missing work, right?" Hartridge said.
Nina Gildersleeve and Molly Sureck had tickets to fly out Saturday, but faced a difficult decision at check-in.
"When I did a final check-in last night, it said, hey, if you want to give up your seat, we can offer you $200, $300, $500 or a custom amount that you want, and we still decided that we want to get back home, so we declined that, but that was one of the offers that United gave us," Sureck said.
Sureck noted the situation brought back memories — she was also flying on Sept. 11, 2001, when all flights were grounded nationwide.
"I had to rent a car to drive back home because all the flights were canceled for a while," Sureck said. "I was in Orlando at the time on business, so kind of a similar, very similar situation."
The only other nationwide ground stop before Friday's incident occurred in 2023 and lasted just 90 minutes. The other was on Sept. 11, 2001.
Airlines are urging passengers to check their phones for updates, as cancellation notices and rebooking options are being sent by email. Travelers are also encouraged to check in with ticketing counters when possible.
This story was reported on-air by journalist Blake Phillips and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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