Crews Repair Cut Cable, Flights in Northeast Resume

Hundreds of flights were canceled in the US Northeast on Monday due to technical problems at a key regional air traffic control center, halting operations at every major airport in the New York City area before the federal transportation chief said the damaged data lines were fixed and operations were resuming.

• A key circuit failed at an air traffic facility in Philadelphia, affecting flights into that city as well as Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark airports, the AP reports. The Federal Aviation Administration then discovered that a backup fiber optic line had also been cut due to construction elsewhere.

• The outage occurred as President Trump and numerous foreign leaders were flying into New York City for the United Nations General Assembly.
• The technical problems happened at the same FAA facility in Philadelphia that caused numerous disruptions at Newark Liberty International Airport in the spring of 2025. FAA administrator Brian Bedford told reporters that the primary circuit into that air traffic control facility failed Monday morning. Then, the agency discovered that the backup fiber optic line had been severed somewhere between New Brunswick and Newark, New Jersey. Bedford said the repair could take 13 hours, according to a video posted online by a CBS transportation reporter.

• The primary circuit that failed is due to be replaced as part of the overhaul of the nation's air traffic control system.
• By early afternoon, flights were starting to resume at LaGuardia and Philadelphia. Some airlines were allowing their customers to change flights without charging them fees.
• Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy later said in an online post that the primary and backup lines were fixed by Monday evening and that all airports in the Northeast were operating again. But significant delays were expected to continue through the evening hours.