US airline services temporarily disrupted, several flights grounded: What we know so far

Air travel in the United State has been temporarily disrupted on Wednesday due to a failure of a key pilot notification system operated by the Federal Aviation Administration. United Airlines has grounded flights to all destinations for the time being. Here is all you need to know

• Reports of flight delays flooded social media with scores of passengers who were to fly domestically complaining about the same.
• For now, no estimate available for the restoration of the Notice to Air Missions System, or NOTAMs. The Notam system provides airlines with real time safety information for flight planning.
• As per online flight tracker FlightAware, more than 1,160 flights within, into and out of the U.S. were delayed as of around 7 a.m. Wednesday morning. Just under 100 flights were listed as cancelled.
• Meanwhile, a hotline has been activated, the FAA said on its website. "The FAA is working to restore its Notice to Air Missions System. We are performing final validation checks and repopulating the system now," it said.

• United Airlines tweeted it had temporarily delayed all domestic flights and would issue an update when it learned more from the FAA about the situation.

• The US airlines association, Airlines for America, said it’s been notified about the disruptions, and that it’s “working with the FAA and awaiting further information regarding when these issues will be resolved.” Shares of United and American Airlines Group Inc. were both more than 1% lower in premarket trading.
• Meanwhile, the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport said in a tweet, "An FAA system outage is causing ground stops at AUS and other airports across the country."
• "Arriving & departing passengers can expect delays this morning & through the day," it said, adding: "Please stay in contact with your airline & check your flight status before heading to AUS."

• Apart from that, a number of airports outside the U.S. said operations were continuing as normal.
• The new disruptions follow closely on a December operations meltdown at Southwest Airlines Co. that forced it to cancel more than 16,700 flights and drove the airline to a fourth-quarter loss.