A technical problem at an air traffic control center near Washington caused hundreds of flight delays and cancellations at airports on the East Coast over the weekend, federal air safety regulators said.þþQuantifying travelers’ pain, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a Facebook post on Sunday that the problem at the air traffic control center in Leesburg, Va., was responsible for 462 delays and 476 cancellations at airports in the Washington metropolitan area on Saturday.þþAlthough the problem was fixed after several hours on Saturday, airports and connecting hubs continued to experience delays on Sunday, according to tracking data on Flight Aware, as airlines scrambled to return to normal operation and rebook passengers whose flights were canceled a day earlier.þþOn Saturday, flights in and out of East Coast airports were delayed, canceled or grounded for about five hours until the problem was fixed, and traffic through regional airspace had to be rerouted. The agency said air traffic was down 30 percent at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, 28 percent at Ronald Reagan National Airport and 12 percent at Washington Dulles International Airport from the normal average for a Saturday.þþOn Sunday, airports in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida with flights bound for Washington reported delays ranging from 20 minutes to more than two hours.þþThe F.A.A. said it was “continuing to diagnose the cause” of the problem.þ
Source: NY Times
