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FAA glitch affects hundreds of flights

By Ashleigh Oldland, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 27, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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An electronic communication failure Tuesday at a Federal Aviation Administration facility in Georgia that processes flight plans for the eastern half of the U.S. caused massive flight delays around the country.

The Northeast was hardest hit, but flight interruptions will likely be felt in Denver.

"Flights from the east to Denver will be delayed and connections through Denver may start to impact passengers," said Jeff Green, Denver International Airport spokesman. "We'll be doing everything we can, but this is mostly out of our hands and in the FAA's."

Green said is not sure how severe the delays will be at DIA, but did say that with the Democratic National Convention in town, hotels will not be able to accommodate passengers who may find themselves unexpectedly stuck in Denver overnight.

"At this point we don't know how long or how many delays there will be," Green said. "We have a limited number of sleeping cots if people need them to stay in the airport overnight, but I'm not saying it's going to come to that."

At one point, an FAA Web site that tracks airport status showed delays at some three dozen major airports across the country. The site advised passengers to "check your departure airport to see if your flight may be affected."

The FAA said the glitch appeared to have involved a software problem.

FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen in Atlanta said there were no safety issues and officials were still able to speak to pilots on planes on the ground and in the air.

She said she did not know exactly how many flights were affected, but she said it was in the hundreds. The FAA did not expect to have total figures until today. Bergen said that in a 24-hour period the FAA processes more than 300,000 flight plans in the U.S.

"We have our engineers looking at it and we're doing a complete investigation," she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.