Today's FAA's flight delays may be over — for now

If you’re traveling by air today, your problems may be over — at least any that resulted from the flight delays caused by the FAA’s nettlesome computer software in Atlanta.

A Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson said at 3 p.m. today that the system used for flight plans was operating normally again, although the software issue remains unsolved for now.

“We have minimal delays right now,” said Diane Spitaliere, an FAA spokeswoman.

Southern California airports were not affected by the problem.

The software program in Atlanta failed about 10 a.m. Pacific time. When that happened, a similar facility in Salt Lake City took over. But users continued to try to refile their flight plans, bogging down the system, Spitaliere said. Once those frequently refiled plans were cleared and entered manually, Salt Lake was able to handle the entire load.

At its worst, flight delays (mostly departures, but some arrivals) were as late as 90 minutes in some areas of the country. Hardest hit: Chicago (O’Hare and Midway), Baltimore/Washington International, Boston and Atlanta.

Atlanta continues to dig its way out today because it also had to contend with thunderstorms.

The Atlanta computer system is not yet online again. The problem will have to be investigated, Spitaliere said. Although the system has had problems before, this event was unlike previous issues, she said.

“We want to do a thorough analysis before we bring it back up,” she said. “It’s not critical right now that it be brought back up.”

Related Links:

FAA computer problem causes flight delays nationwide

FAA inputs flight plans manually because of computer glitch

FAA reports flight delays across U.S.

FAA updates flight delay map

— Catharine Hamm, Los Angeles Times Travel editor

[Photo: A flight information display screen at LaGuardia Airport earlier today in New York shows delayed flights; Edouard H.R. Gluck / Associated Press]

Permalink | E-mail | Print | Add to My Trips

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 4:49 pm by Catharine Hamm and is filed under Airline travel, Business Travel, News, Tips & Advice, Travel Insider. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.