Dallas airports return to normal as FAA details problem that caused outage

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Flight operations at two Dallas-area airports returned to normal operations on Saturday as the Federal Aviation Administration detailed telecom failures by a telecommunications company that it said led to more than 2,000 flight disruptions.

American Airlines AAL.O, the largest carrier at Dallas Fort Worth Airport, said more than 100,000 passengers were impacted following telecom issues that began on Friday around 2 p.m. CT and were not resolved until Saturday morning.

American said it was forced to cancel 530 flights Friday, 160 flights Saturday, and had to divert another 65 flights that had been bound for Dallas.

Southwest Airlines LUV.N, the largest carrier at Dallas Love Field, delayed more than 1,100 flights Friday, or a quarter of its operations, and more than 200 Saturday, but canceled only one flight, according to Southwest and FlightAware, which tracks flights. Southwest said it had 580 extreme delays on Friday.

American, which also delayed more than 350 flights since Friday, warned there could be some additional operational impacts.

The FAA said "multiple failures" of telecommunications data services provided by Frontier Communications FYBR.O led to the outage that impacted the FAA’s Dallas Terminal Radar Approach Control, which handles operations for both Dallas airports. Frontier has agreed to be acquired by Verizon Communications VZ.N, but the deal has not yet closed.

"Oversight by L3Harris, an FAA contractor, failed to ensure that redundancies in the system functioned properly," the FAA said.

A Frontier spokeswoman said a third-party contractor in Argyle, Texas, accidentally cut its fiber lines, impacting communication systems at the Dallas airports. "Our team worked overnight, closely coordinating with the FAA and the airports to stabilize the systems, and as a result the airports are up and running today," she said.

American Airlines, in detailing the events that led to the flight disruptions, said two cut fiber optic cables on Friday impacted data supporting FAA radars, radio frequencies and computer systems.

American Airlines' chief operating officer, David Seymour, said in an email to employees that efforts to restore service by L3Harris LHX.N and Frontier did not move fast enough and said the airline was working to determine the financial impact of the outage.

Seymour and the airline's CEO, Robert Isom, had a difficult time "reaching leadership at Frontier and L3Harris. We are extraordinarily disappointed that neither provider seems to have any sense of urgency to resolve this matter," Seymour said in the email.

An L3Harris spokesperson said a fault in the local telecommunication carrier’s switching gear and a fiber cut impacted flights.

"L3Harris immediately assisted with troubleshooting impacted circuits and critical services were restored to the FAA," the company said. "We will continue working with the telecom provider and FAA to completely restore services to their full resiliency."

The FAA has faced an unending series of tech issues in recent years highlighting the fragile state of the aging U.S. air traffic control system. Congress in July awarded $12.5 billion to overhaul the system.