Duffy Expects Flights To Return To Full Capacity Monday

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Sunday that he expects flights to resume to full capacity by Monday following Friday’s rare nationwide ground stop that left airlines scrambling to get planes and crews back into position.

“We have some delays in the airspace right now, but as we look to the end of the day and tomorrow, we should be running at full capacity,” Duffy said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” one of his multiple TV appearances Sunday designed to update the country on the aviation crisis. Airlines canceled thousands of flights Saturday, when Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford said he expected operations to return to normal by the end of Sunday.

The trouble began Friday during an upgrade to the FAA’s communications network, which carries data air traffic controllers use to manage flights. Duffy said Saturday at a press conference that the upgrade triggered more than 1,000 connection attempts every few seconds, overwhelming other routers across the system. He said investigators were looking at whether FAA contractor L3 Harris made an error during the installation or installed a faulty router.

On Sunday, Duffy said investigators are examining two routers, one in El Dorado, Arkansas, and another in Amarillo, Texas, as they work to determine whether the installation or the equipment was to blame. He said officials would reevaluate when they schedule upgrades at remote sites after Friday’s daytime work in El Dorado flooded the FAA’s network with data.

“How do you switch over from copper to fiber to keep airplanes safe in the sky? That’s the No. 1 priority,” Duffy said, defending the FAA’s safety planning.

He said similar upgrades had been done thousands of times successfully. “Well, this time it didn't.”

Duffy told ABC’s “This Week” that officials stopped the flood of data by disabling the broadcast function on 69 routers across the system. He said the Arkansas router is now at an L3 Harris lab in Florida, where FAA staff are on site. Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether he would cut ties with L3 Harris, Duffy said he couldn’t because the contractor owns and operates the communications network the FAA relies on.

Duffy also doubled down Sunday on his push for $50 billion to overhaul the air traffic control system, up from the $30 billion he had been seeking before Friday’s ground stop. Congress already provided $12.5 billion in last year’s GOP megabill to get the overhaul started.

Duffy told ABC a replacement communications network could be ready by the end of 2028 or in the first quarter of 2029 if Congress provides the funding.

Pressed on CNN’s “State of the Union” about Democrats’ criticism that the department had spent only $1 billion of the $12.5 billion, Duffy said Congress had earmarked the money for upgrades such as radar and radios, and noted the department was on track to spend the full amount and have those upgrades in place by the end of 2028.

President Donald Trump joined Sunday in urging Congress to approve more funding, saying in a Truth Social post that the overhaul “should be done all at once, not in drips and drabs.”