FAA computer glitch causing nationwide delays clearing up

— -- The Federal Aviation Administration said flight delays caused by a glitch at the Georgia facility that processes flight plans were "clearing up quite nicely" at some three dozen major airports around the country Tuesday evening, but officials continued to rely on a backup computer system.

Hundreds of airline flights from Chicago to the East Coast were delayed when the FAA computer system that processes flight plans went down shortly after 1 p.m. A backup system continued to operate, but it could not keep up with the volume.

Delays were heaviest at Chicago O'Hare International, Chicago Midway, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall airports, said Hank Krakowski, head of the FAA's air traffic division.

"It looks like we're slowly starting to dig out of this," Krakowski said.

At 5 p.m., the FAA had not yet tallied how many flights were held up because of the computer problem. Most airlines reported minimal disruptions.

"Things are improving," said Richard Walsh, spokesman for Massport, which operates Boston Logan International Airport. "We expect it to get better." Flights in and out of Logan dropped by 50% at one point, he said.

While some airports experienced frustrating slowdowns, most delays were "relatively brief," said Basil Barimo, vice president of the Air Transport Association, the large airlines' trade group.

Flights were delayed because the FAA's radar system cannot function unless a flight plan has been filed. The agency's radars functioned normally throughout the day, but an automated system that feeds flight plans to the radar system failed, the agency said.

An FAA website that tracks airport status showed delays at such airports as New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York's LaGuardia, Chicago Midway, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson and Boston Logan. The FAA advised passengers to check departure airports to see if their flights had been affected.

FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said the problem that occurred Tuesday afternoon involves an FAA facility in Hampton, Ga., south of Atlanta, that processes flight plans. She said there was a failure in a communication link that transmits the data to a similar facility in Salt Lake City.

As a result, the Salt Lake City facility was having to process those flight plans, causing delays in planes taking off. She said there were no problems with planes landing.

The impact varied widely around the country:

• BWI airport in Baltimore reported "significant delays" of an hour or more as the FAA asked airlines not to file any new flights plans, airport spokeswoman Cheryl Stewart said.

•At Chicago O'Hare, the big board showed about a dozen flights delayed, but passengers took the matter in stride. Mark Helle, 49, who lives in Chicago, said his flight to Oklahoma City was on time "unless everything comes to a grinding halt in an hour." he said. If not, he planned a backup flight to his destination. Helle said he has traveled on business for 20 years and "this is the kind of stuff that happens."

• At Boston Logan, the hourly arrivals rate in the afternoon was in the low 30s and departures were down to the low to mid 20 flights per hour, compared to 40 per hour each, Walsh said.

• In Atlanta, discount carrier AirTran Airways, which has its hub at Hartsfield-Jackson, said in a statement that it was taking up to an hour for the FAA to get clearances to the towers for departures. Delta Air Lines, which has its main hub in Atlanta, said flights were processing for takeoff, but slowly. The FAA spokeswoman said officials at the Atlanta airport were entering flight data manually to try to speed things up.

• At Orlando International Airport, spokeswoman Carolyn Fennell said 13 Southwest Airlines flights had been affected by the glitch.

• In Tampa, Brenda Geoghagan, a spokeswoman for Tampa International Airport, said "it may just be too soon" to determine the impact there. Christine Osborn, another spokeswoman at the Tampa airport, said there have been no delays due to the flight plan communication failure. But she said she anticipated problems in the coming hours. "There's definitely going to be some impact," she said.

• At Miami International Airport, there were no delays or cancellations due to the communication failure, said spokesman Marc Henderson.

"There are cancellations due to weather from the hurricane, but not due to this," he said.

The National Airspace Data Interchange Network is a data communications system for air traffic controllers. It's used to distribute flight plans and allows controllers to know when planes are leaving, where they're going and other details.

Allen Kenitzer, a western regional spokesman for the FAA, said the Utah system could handle the extra load while workers tried to get the Atlanta system back on line, but it was expected to slow down air traffic.

"We're not going to let an unsafe condition exist. It's just going to be slower," Kenitzer said.