Telecommunication equipment issue causes flight delays at Dallas airports, FAA says

DALLAS (AP) — Flights at Dallas-area airports were stopped and delayed Friday afternoon due to a telecommunications equipment issue, federal officials said.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it was slowing flights to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and Dallas Love Field because of a reported local telephone company equipment issue. The FAA said the issue did not involve FAA equipment, and they were working with the telephone company to determine the cause.

The FAA expects the delays to continue well into Friday night.

A spokesperson for Love Field said they were in “constant communication” with partners including the FAA as they “work to manage the situation and minimize disruptions.” DFW Airport said on the social platform X that the FAA was managing the air traffic delays in the area.

As of late Friday afternoon, departures from Love Field were delayed by an average of about 30 minutes due to the the equipment outage, according to the FAA website. At DFW Airport, a ground stop was in place for American Airlines and flights on other airlines were being delayed by over an hour.

All flights were stopped at both airports for more than an hour.

American Airlines said on X that the FAA had reported “an issue involving the telecommunications provider for the air traffic control facility that oversees the airspace in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.”

The FAA said the problems in Dallas weren’t linked to the aging equipment that air traffic controllers rely on or the nationwide shortage of controllers that both combined to disrupt flights at Newark Liberty International Airport earlier this year. The federal government is now working to overhaul the technology after Congress approved $12.5 billion and hire thousands more controllers but both efforts will likely take years to complete.