Fern holds the post-pandemic record and 13 November comes second
11,607Flights cancelled on Sunday 25 January 2026 in Winter Storm Fern 1The most in a day since the pandemic began, FlightAware's count via the Daily Beast
About 9,200Cancelled on Friday 13 November 2026, by FlightAware's count 1Second worst day of 2026. Other counts were lower
About 7,400Superstorm Sandy, Monday 29 October 2012 4The benchmark Pax nearly matched in February 2014
About 3,400CrowdStrike, Friday 19 July 2024, the biggest day an airline-side failure caused here 8FlightAware via the New York Times
6 of 10Of the biggest days here were storms13 November 2026 is the largest one without a storm as its main cause
Storms caused 6 of the 10 biggest days, and the 13 November FAA outage comes second
US flights cancelled in a single day, all airlines, for the largest days in this record. Pandemic days in 2020 are left out.
WeatherFAA or governmentAirline or its vendor
FlightAware counts read through CBS News, Fortune, Fox Business and the New York Times; TravelMole; CNBC; Skift; NPR. Each figure is cited in the table below.
Single-airline and single-city failures cancelled up to about 3,000 flights in a day
The chart counts days across all US airlines. The table adds days when one airline or a few airports lost most of their flights, so the "Counted" column matters. Filter by cause or by what was counted.
| Date | Event | Cause | Counted | Cancelled that day | Counted by and source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Jan 2026 | Winter Storm Fern | Weather | All US airlines | 11,607 | FlightAware via CBS News 1 2 |
| 13 Nov 2026 | FAA nationwide ground stop | FAA or government | All US airlines | about 9,200 | FlightAware end of day via CBS News and Upgraded Points; other counts below 1 3 |
| 29 Oct 2012 | Superstorm Sandy | Weather | All US airlines | about 7,400 | TravelMole; Bloomberg reported 7,670 from a FlightAware snapshot 4 |
| 13 Feb 2014 | Winter Storm Pax | Weather | All US airlines | more than 7,100 | TravelMole, end of day; FlightAware had 6,200 by midday 4 5 |
| 23 Dec 2022 | Winter Storm Elliott | Weather | All US airlines | about 5,600 | CNBC (tracker not named for the daily figure) 6 |
| 4 Jan 2018 | Bomb cyclone (Winter Storm Grayson) | Weather | All US airlines | 5,497 | FlightAware via Fortune 7 |
| 6 Jan 2014 | Polar vortex | Weather | All US airlines | 4,110 | FlightAware via Fox Business 5 |
| 19 Jul 2024 | CrowdStrike software failure | Airline or its vendor | All US airlines | about 3,400 | FlightAware via the New York Times 8 |
| 26 Dec 2022 | Southwest holiday meltdown, worst day | Airline or its vendor | Southwest only | 3,037 | Southwest's own daily count, via Wikipedia's table 13 |
| 9 Nov 2025 | Shutdown flight cuts, peak day | FAA or government | All US airlines | 2,788 | Reported by Skift; Reuters reported about 2,900 for the Monday 9 10 |
| 26 Sep 2014 | Chicago Center fire | FAA or government | O'Hare and Midway | more than 2,000 | Global News (AP) 14 |
| 11 Jan 2023 | FAA NOTAM outage | FAA or government | All US airlines | about 1,300 | Reported by CBS News and NPR 11 12 |
| 8 Aug 2016 | Delta data centre power failure | Airline or its vendor | Delta only | about 1,000 | CNNMoney via KSL 15 |
| 16 Apr 2013 | American Airlines reservation system failure | Airline or its vendor | American only | nearly 1,000 | AP via Motley Fool 16 |
| 17 Dec 2017 | Atlanta airport power failure | Power failure | Delta at Atlanta | about 900 | Reported by Insurance Journal 17 |
| 21 Sep 2026 | Philadelphia TRACON telecom failure | FAA or government | Newark and Philadelphia | 816 | FlightAware via NBC, by about 6pm ET 18 |
| 15 Aug 2015 | Washington Center ERAM software failure | FAA or government | Washington area airports | 476 | Reported by Route Fifty 19 |
Every chart here can be embedded, downloaded and cited
Each chart has Embed, CSV and PNG buttons, and every figure links to its source. Credit FlightCancellations.com and link to the page.
- Media and embedsContact, credit lines, embed codes and the headline figures.
- Methodology and sourcesHow every figure was checked, with the source list.
- Every figure in one tableSearch, filter and download all 755 figures as CSV.
- Stranded now? Check your flightWhat the airline and your insurer or card owe you.
The counts here depend on who counted and when
- FlightAware's end-of-day count of 9,159 is the highest of the counts for 13 November. 3 Earlier in the evening CBS and the BBC reported nearly 8,000, Fox Weather had more than 5,200 at 8pm ET 20 and Flightradar24 counted more than 4,700 (via Al Jazeera) 21. The Wall Street Journal reported nearly 6,000, and CNBC said part of Friday's total was weather.
- FlightAware's public daily totals start around 2009, so older storms are missing. Counts also depend on when the snapshot was taken: early counts on a bad day are often thousands below the final figure.
- Pandemic days in spring 2020 are left out. Airlines cut schedules in advance then, and the one daily count found could not be verified.
- Fern's 11,607 is FlightAware's figure via CBS News. Other snapshots put the day at 11,599 to 11,618, AP reported more than 11,400 and Cirium 10,766. The Daily Beast reported it as the highest single day since the pandemic began. 2
- Figures marked reported elsewhere were reported by the outlet named and could not be opened at the original. The shutdown peak (Skift), the NOTAM outage (CBS News and NPR), Atlanta (Insurance Journal) and Washington Center (Route Fifty) are reported elsewhere.
- The chart shows days counted across all US airlines. A day when only one airline or one city lost flights sits in the table, labelled by what was counted.
Full data for this page: Biggest single days of US flight cancellations (CSV). Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a credit and a link.
Sources
21 sources
- 1CBS News citing FlightAware Checked at source
- 2Daily Beast citing FlightAware Checked at source
- 3FlightAware via Upgraded Points Checked at source
- 4TravelMole Checked at source
- 5Fox Business citing FlightAware Checked at source
- 6CNBC Checked at source
- 7Fortune citing FlightAware Checked at source
- 8Hawaii Tribune-Herald (NYT News Service, FlightAware) Checked at source
- 9Skift Reported elsewhere
- 10GV Wire (Reuters) Reported elsewhere
- 11CBS News Reported elsewhere
- 12NPR (via KPBS) Reported elsewhere
- 13Wikipedia, 2022 Southwest Airlines scheduling crisis Checked at source
- 14Global News (AP) Checked at source
- 15KSL (CNNMoney) Checked at source
- 16Motley Fool (AP) Checked at source
- 17Insurance Journal Reported elsewhere
- 18Aerocorner Checked at source
- 19Route Fifty Reported elsewhere
- 20Fox Weather Checked at source
- 21Al Jazeera Checked at source