The 2026 stop ran nearly three times as long as January 2023's
7 timesAs many cancellations as the 2023 NOTAM outage: about 9,200 against about 1,300 1 2By FlightAware's count. Also 2.7 times CrowdStrike's first US day, about 3,400 3
2.9 timesAs long a stop: 4 hours 21 minutes against about 90 minutes3:54pm to 8:15pm ET, and about 7:30 to 9am ET
About 2,100Cancellations per hour of stop on 13 NovemberAbout 870 in January 2023 and about 400 for Chicago 2014 (worked out here)
About 28 timesA normal day: US airlines averaged about 324 cancellations a day in 2025 15118,168 cancellations over the year (worked out here)
About 49 hoursThe 9/11 airspace closure, about 11 times as long as November 2026An estimate from 9:45am ET on 11 September to about 11am ET on 13 September 2001
2 daysFAA forecast for full schedules after 13 NovemberChicago's 2014 centre fire took 18 days to fix 16
No other outage here with a published count cancelled as many US flights in a day
Flights cancelled on the first or worst day, with the length of the stop. Each group is drawn on its own scale. 9/11 has no published count.
FAA, air traffic control or governmentAirline or its vendorVolcanic ash or power
FlightAware via CBS News and Upgraded Points; the New York Times; Southwest; Skift; Global News; CBS News and NPR; NBC; Eurocontrol, IATA, NATS, Cirium and NESO as cited.
Chicago 2014 took 18 days to recover from a five-hour halt
Stop length, cancellations, recovery, people affected and cost for each outage, where a source gave them. Blank means no figure was found.
| Event | Date | Where | Stop or closure | First or worst day cancelled | Total cancelled | Days to recover | People affected | Cost, US$m | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FAA nationwide ground stop | 13 Nov 2026 | US, nationwide | 4h 21m | about 9,200 (9,159) | 2 (forecast) | about 1.5 million booked to fly after the stop began | none published | 1 2 17 | |
| 9/11 national ground stop and full US airspace closure | 11 Sep 2001 | US, all airspace | about 49h | no count published | 2 (Reagan National 23) | 10 18 | |||
| FAA NOTAM outage, nationwide ground stop | 11 Jan 2023 | US, nationwide | about 1h 30m | about 1,300 | about 1,300 | 1 | 7 8 | ||
| CrowdStrike outage | 19 Jul 2024 | US, several airlines | airline stops | about 3,400 | Delta alone more than 7,000 over five days | 6 | about 1.3 million (Delta only) | 550 (Delta's estimate) | 3 19 |
| CrowdStrike global IT outage (airline impact) | 19 Jul 2024 | Worldwide | airline stops | 5,117 by mid-afternoon ET | 16,896 over 72 hours | 20 21 | |||
| Southwest holiday meltdown | 21 to 31 Dec 2022 | US, Southwest only | none | 3,037 | more than 16,700 | 9 | more than 2 million | 800 (Q4 2022 pre-tax) | 22 4 |
| Government shutdown flight cuts | 7 to 17 Nov 2025 | US, 40 airports | none (ordered cuts) | 2,788 at the peak | more than 10,000 | 5 23 | |||
| Chicago Center (ZAU) arson fire, Aurora | 26 Sep 2014 | US, Chicago Center | about 5h | more than 2,000 | more than 3,500 (Flying) or 5,700 (DOT inspector general) | 18 | 6 24 25 | ||
| Philadelphia TRACON telecom failure | 21 Sep 2026 | US, Newark and Philadelphia | airport stops | 816 | 9 | ||||
| Minneapolis Center telecom outage | 6 Aug 2026 | US, Minneapolis Center | about 2h 15m | 104 tied to the outage (Delta) | 26 | ||||
| Washington Center ERAM software failure | 15 Aug 2015 | US, Washington Center | several hours | 476 | 476 | 1 | 27 | ||
| NATS flight-plan system (FPRSA-R) failure | 28 Aug 2023 | UK | 5h 55m (processing down) | more than 1,500 | more than 1,600 | about 5 | more than 700,000 | up to £100m (industry estimate) | 13 28 |
| NATS flight data processing failure, September 2026 | 8 Sep 2026 | UK | 5h 44m | 1,746 | 2,145 over two days | 2 | 12 29 | ||
| Heathrow closure after North Hyde substation fire | 21 Mar 2025 | UK, Heathrow | about 18h | about 1,300 | 1,351 (Flightradar24) | 1 | about 270,000 | 30 14 | |
| Eyjafjallajokull volcanic ash closures | 15 to 22 Apr 2010 | Europe | about 6 days (varied by country) | about 19,000 a day at peak | 104,000 in 8 days | 8 | about 10 million | about 1,700 (IATA, airline revenue) | 31 32 11 |
Every chart here can be embedded, downloaded and cited
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- Methodology and sourcesHow every figure was checked, with the source list.
- Every figure in one tableSearch, filter and download all 755 figures as CSV.
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The counts here depend on who counted and when
- About 9,200 is FlightAware's end-of-day count (9,159) via CBS News and Upgraded Points. 2 Earlier counts were lower: nearly 8,000 (CBS and the BBC), more than 5,200 at 8pm ET (Fox Weather) 33 and more than 4,700 (Flightradar24 via Al Jazeera). 17 The Wall Street Journal reported nearly 6,000, and CNBC said part of Friday's total was weather. Every ratio on this page that uses 13 November rests on the FlightAware count.
- Cirium's figure of about 1.5 million is the number of people booked on flights still due to leave after 4pm ET on 13 November. It measures people booked to fly after the stop began. Nobody has published a count of people stranded.
- Ratios and per-hour figures are worked out here from the counts shown. The 2025 daily average is the Bureau of Transportation Statistics total of 118,168 cancellations divided by 365. 15
- The 9/11 closure length of about 49 hours runs from the 9:45am ET order to land all aircraft to the limited reopening at about 11am ET on 13 September 2001. Airports reopened over several days, and Reagan National stayed shut until 4 October.
- Figures marked reported elsewhere were reported by the outlet named. The ash cloud peak of about 19,000 a day (IATA), NATS 2026 (Cirium via Gulf News and AP), the shutdown peak (Skift), the NOTAM outage (CBS News and NPR), Heathrow (NESO) and Washington Center (Route Fifty) are reported elsewhere.
- UK and European outages are drawn on their own scale in the chart because the ash cloud closed most of Europe's airspace for days.
Full data for this page: Ground stops and airspace closures compared (CSV). Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a credit and a link.
Sources
33 sources
- 1CBS News citing FlightAware Checked at source
- 2FlightAware via Upgraded Points Checked at source
- 3Hawaii Tribune-Herald (NYT News Service, FlightAware) Checked at source
- 4Wikipedia, 2022 Southwest Airlines scheduling crisis Checked at source
- 5Skift Reported elsewhere
- 6Global News (AP) Checked at source
- 7CBS News Reported elsewhere
- 8NPR (via KPBS) Reported elsewhere
- 9Aerocorner Checked at source
- 109/11 Commission Report Reported elsewhere
- 11IATA economic briefing (impact of ash plume) Reported elsewhere
- 12Gulf News (AP) Reported elsewhere
- 13NATS Major Incident Investigation Final Report (CAA hosted) Checked at source
- 14NESO Reported elsewhere
- 15US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes (TranStats) Checked at source
- 16FAA press release via AviationPros Checked at source
- 17Al Jazeera Checked at source
- 18FlightGlobal Reported elsewhere
- 19Wikipedia, 2024 Delta Air Lines disruption Checked at source
- 20NBC (CNBC wire, Cirium data) Reported elsewhere
- 21Cirium Thoughtcloud Reported elsewhere
- 22US DOT press release via AviationPros Checked at source
- 23FlightAware via TravelPulse Reported elsewhere
- 24Flying Reported elsewhere
- 25DOT OIG report hosted by Sen. Durbin Reported elsewhere
- 26Aerocorner Checked at source
- 27Route Fifty Reported elsewhere
- 28UK CAA CAP3109 progress report Checked at source
- 29AeroCorner Checked at source
- 30Travel Weekly Checked at source
- 31Eurocontrol STATFOR report Checked at source
- 32IATA press release 21 April 2010 Checked at source
- 33Fox Weather Checked at source