FAA ground stop delays Juneau flights leaving Alaska as in-state flights keep departing

Travelers flying out of Alaska from Juneau International Airport were told to expect delays Friday after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered departing flights held nationwide. Flights within Alaska were expected to keep departing, according to the City and Borough of Juneau.

The airport got notice of the ground stop at 12:34 pm. The FAA said it ordered all departing traffic to stay on the ground for safety after multiple reports of communication problems at its Air Route Traffic Control Centers, which handle planes flying between airports. The agency said its technicians were investigating.

Airport Manager Andres Delgado told travelers leaving Juneau to expect delays. In a 1:45 pm update, the city said flights within Alaska were expected to depart and flights leaving Alaska should expect delays. The city advised travelers to check with their airline before heading to the airport.

The FAA lifted the stop after more than four hours, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed old, overloaded equipment. Alaska Airlines said the stop caused more than 200 cancellations across Alaska and Hawaiian airlines, though its flights within Alaska were not affected.

By Friday evening, FlightAware data showed 1,913 flights canceled and 10,494 delayed nationwide. It was only the second time since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the FAA has halted all departures across the country. The first came in January 2023, after an outage of the system that sends safety notices to pilots. The FAA lifted that stop in under two hours, according to FAA statements.

Juneau has no road connecting it to the rest of Alaska. Its city-owned airport is the region's hub, with scheduled jet flights to Seattle, Sitka, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Wrangell and Anchorage and air taxi flights to smaller Southeast Alaska communities. The airport served an estimated 712,000 passengers in 2025, according to Bureau of Transportation Statistics figures cited in a draft transportation plan in the Juneau Assembly's Nov. 16 agenda packet.