A nationwide FAA ground stop halted all U.S. flight departures Friday afternoon, raising questions about travel plans for the Kansas City Chiefs and other NFL teams scheduled to play on the road. The FAA cited “extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety” but had not given a firm timetable for resuming departures.
The restriction applies to outbound flights. Aircraft already in the air may land, while international flights bound for U.S. airports are being assessed individually. The Chiefs’ travel is affected only if the order remains in place when their charter is scheduled to depart Kansas City.
## Chiefs’ Travel Plans for the Falcons Game
The Chiefs have not publicly announced when they plan to fly to Atlanta for Sunday’s game against the Falcons at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. NFL teams typically travel on Friday or Saturday, so the ground stop could disrupt plans for any club scheduled to leave Friday evening.
Kansas City remained at home Friday for its final practice of the week. Running back Kenneth Walker III missed practice with groin tightness and was listed as questionable for Sunday. The team planned to reassess him during rehabilitation Friday afternoon and again Saturday. Coach Andy Reid said, “If he can go, he can go. If he can’t, he can’t.”
The Falcons, as the home team, do not need to fly to the game. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport confirmed that arriving flights could still land while departures remained on hold.
The game was scheduled to kick off at noon Central time Sunday, or 1 p.m. Eastern, more than 44 hours after the ground stop began. As of 4:30 p.m. Eastern Friday, no NFL team had reported a flight disrupted by the order, and there had been no announcement from the league or FAA indicating that the game schedule would change.
## What Caused the FAA Ground Stop?
The FAA had not identified the root cause as of Friday afternoon. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said FAA technicians were investigating a communication problem affecting the country’s Air Route Traffic Control Centers, which direct aircraft traveling between cities.
The nationwide order followed a reported “rolling frequency outage” at air traffic control sites. Chicago experienced a disruption first, with the FAA stopping traffic there over controller communication problems before issuing the broader order.
The length of the stoppage remained uncertain. The FAA’s posted event window ran through 11 p.m. Eastern Friday, but that window could change, and the order did not specify a firm end time. A Saturday charter would depart after the listed window, provided the restriction was lifted and flights had resumed.
Claims that the ground stop had ended had not been confirmed. An unnamed FAA source described the situation as “absolutely unheard of.”
Friday’s order was the first nationwide ground stop of its kind since January 2023, when a computer failure grounded departures. That stoppage, caused by a pilot-alert system failure, lasted about 90 minutes, though flight disruptions continued afterward. A comparable nationwide action also followed the September 11, 2001, attacks, when the FAA cleared U.S. skies.
Neither the FAA nor Duffy had announced when departures would resume, and the Chiefs had not said when they planned to leave for Atlanta.
