Hundreds of flights across the east coast of the US were delayed or cancelled at the weekend due to a software upgrade, the US Federal Aviation Administration has said.
“Technical issues” with a Virginia air traffic control centre caused 492 flight delays and 476 cancellations, the FAA said. Saturday air traffic at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport was reduced by 30%, by 28% at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and 12% at Dulles International Airport.
Part of the backlog was the result of a decision to reduce arrival and departure rates in the Washington area between 11am and 4pm on Saturday for safety reasons, affecting flights from New Jersey and New York that flew over the Washington area.
By mid-afternoon, 50% of inbound flights and 42% of outbound flights had been canceled at Reagan National and delays were averaging about three hours, according to data from FlightRadar24. In Baltimore, 58% of inbound flights and 36% of outbound flights had been canceled, and delays were averaging more than an hour.
The FAA said the upgrade was designed to provide more tools for controllers, but that the new features have been disabled while the systems contractor completes an assessment of the malfunction. The technical issues were resolved at approximately 4pm.
The FAA suggested the problem was with the En Route Automation Modernisation computer system, known as Eram, at the Leesburg Center on Saturday. On Sunday, the agency confirmed that the software upgrade causing the issues was performed on the Eram computer system, but that there was “no indication that the problem is related to any inherent problems with the En Route Automation Modernisation system, which has had a greater than 99.99 availability rate since it was completed nationwide earlier this year”.
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