US East Coast Airports Recovering After Delays

New York-area airports were reporting normal delays on Friday evening after ATC staff shortages and an FAA ground stop halted arrivals for a time at LaGuardia airport earlier in the day.

Hundreds of flights were delayed at New York airports as air traffic controllers called in sick because of the US government shutdown. ATC workers were some of the 800,000 government employees working without pay prior to President Trump announcing agreement on funding for the government for three weeks.

Delta Air Lines, which has a major presence at LaGuardia, reported delays to 200 of its flights there and at other airports in the Northeast region, due to the FAA’s ground delay.

The LaGuardia ground stop for flight arrivals lasted just over an hour, with the airport saying on its twitter account that “Due to staffing shortages at FAA air traffic control centres along the East Coast, there are major delays at LGA.” It requested passengers to confirm their flight with the airline.

Philadelphia Airport reported departure delays of over an hour on Friday morning, but caught up later in the day.

The FAA’s Flight Delay Information website showed all East coast airports, bar Newark had returned to normal. Newark was showing arrival delays of about an hour due to bad weather.