W.Va. Passengers Caught Off Guard By FAA System Outage

Early Wednesday morning, an outage occurred in the Notice To Air Mission system, or NOTAM – a critical Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) computer system used to alert pilots and airports to real time hazards – causing a two hour nationwide ground stop.

Thousands of flights were delayed or canceled as a result, affecting passengers around the country, including here in West Virginia.

Charleston’s Yeager International Airport spokesperson Paige Withrow confirmed later Wednesday the airport was still having difficulty accessing the NOTAM system and experiencing residual delays.

The Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA), which represents airports throughout the U.S. and Canada, said the problem is unrelated to this morning’s NOTAM system outages. In a letter to airport authorities, the organization indicated airports around the country are having problems accessing the NOTAM Manager.

“The FAA has assured us that these issues are being caused by high levels of airport demand for use of the system and are not related to today’s NOTAM system outages. FAA recommends that airports keep trying to log in to the system.”

The letter continued:

“Because the safety and security of the traveling public is our top priority, we are closely engaged with the FAA and our member airports. We urge the FAA to quickly resolve the issue so travel can resume safely and to conduct a full review of the causes of the problem to ensure this type of disruption does not happen again.”

Air travelers are advised to check with their airline on their flight’s status.

Live updates are also available on Yeager Airport’s website: https://yeagerairport.com/live-flight-info/.