As domestic U.S. flights normalize, FAA says ground stop was caused by corrupt file

Jan. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. flight traffic began to normalize on Thursday after a computer issue led the Federal Aviation Administration to ground all flights on Wednesday.

According to flightaware.com, just 753 U.S. flights were delayed as of 9 a.m. Thursday with just 86 U.S. flights canceled after about 10,549 Wednesday flights were delayed and 1,353 flights were canceled.

The nationwide air travel meltdown Wednesday was caused by a single corrupted data file and there is no evidence of a cyberattack, according to the FAA. The federal agency said in a statement it is working to take all needed steps to prevent a reoccurrence.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweeted that the FAA will continue working to "further pinpoint the sources of this issue and steps to prevent it from occurring again."

The safety system affected by the outage was restored later Wednesday, but Buttigieg said a key question to consider is whether or not the FAA's system is out of date.

In a response to the ground stop on Wednesday caused by the corrupted file, Delta Airlines said in a statement that it is offering waivers to passengers allowing itinerary changes "with no fare differences if they remain in the same cabin as originally booked."

United and American are also offering to waive fare differences for rebooking the affected flights.

The FAA's 2022 budget was $18.5 billion, less than it was in 2004 when adjusted for inflation, The New York Times reported.

That makes it more difficult to thoroughly update FAA's systems.