CLEVELAND — More than 9,000 flights nationwide were delayed on Wednesday due to what the Federal Aviation Administration called an outage to its Notice to Air Missions system (NOTAM).
Passengers at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport were caught up in the ripple effects from the system failure.
Our Emma Henderson talked to Christina Collier, who had planned to catch a flight home, run errands, and be ready for the rest of her week. Those plans were put on hold.
"It's crazy because I woke up at 6 a.m. to this and then I kept getting notifications," Collier said. "It kept saying my flight was on time and then I was talking to my AirBnb host. He was like, 'yeah, your flight's probably going to be delayed.'"
Javontae Payton has a similar story. He was in Cleveland to try out with the Browns, but was looking forward to getting back home to warmer temperatures in Nashville. Payton is unsure when that will be.
"We literally already had to rebook like three flights today because of how late the flights is," he said. "I'm sitting in the lobby, really not trying to go through TSA right now because I'm not sure what's going to go on. I'm sitting until 6 and if not, probably end up staying here for another day."
The ground stop from the FAA was lifted on Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. Around 6:30 p.m, the FAA posted a message on social media stating that the NOTAM outage was due to a damaged database file. "At this time, there is no evidence of a cyber attack," the agency added. U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has ordered an investigation as to the cause of the outage.
But over 12 hours after the FAA lifted its ground stop, many travelers at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport were still being impacted.
Heidi Wilkinson from Warren told 3News' Bri Buckley that she has been trying to get to Florida to visit her granddaughter. She has been in contact with her airline but received mixed directions.
"They said to come here today, they'll probably get me on a flight tonight. But its overbooked, so why did they have me come here? So now I'm stuck here until 9-something in the morning, so I'm stuck here for nothing," Wilkinson said.
The industry-wide problem from Wednesday comes less than a month after thousands of flights were canceled or delayed after Christmas, when Southwest Airlines faced major delays due to logistical and tech issues during a winter freeze.
Many are calling for an upgrade to the country's aviation infrastructure. Buttigieg told NBC News that the federal government is listening.
"We've been able again to get a lot of wins in terms of how airlines treat passengers. We're holding airlines accountable to their responsibilities. When there's an issue on the government side of the house, when there's an issue at FAA, we're going to own it. We're going to understand it and we're going to make a very clear what's needed in order to fix it and go after that plan," he said.
If you are traveling on Thursday, there could be some delays in the morning as well. Officials say to check your flight status with the airline before making your way to the airport.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.