Tens of thousands of airline passengers are being warned to brace for major delays as federal officials say US airports have been overwhelmed by the holiday travel rush.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued eight separate airspace flow restrictions on Friday, which affect nearly every major air traffic control center in the US, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, and Miami.
The widespread series of Airspace Flow Programs (AFPs) will impact almost any major airport in the US or Canada flying to Florida or the Caribbean on Friday, one of the busiest travel days of the year, with some delays reaching over six hours.
Specifically, the FAA is slashing the number of planes allowed to take off and enter certain busy sections of airspace to prevent any dangerous situations of overcrowding as hundreds of flights all head to the same destinations.
Hourly limits have been set on how many flights can cross the FAA’s Flow Constrained Area (FCA) boundaries, specific zones over or around the US created by the agency marking flight routes which they expect to be too busy with holiday travel.
Friday’s zones include flight routes over the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea leading to southern Florida, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Turks and Caicos, St Lucia, Aruba region, Mexico, and San Diego.
Between 3pm and 6pm, the FAA expects the average delays to be the worst, with some routes over Mexico and the Dominican Republic expecting peak delay times exceeding three hours.
Maximum delays for flights traveling through the FCA over Florida will reach a staggering 398 minutes, or more than six and a half hours Friday afternoon.
This is a breaking story. More details to follow.
A holiday traveler waits for her flight amid major airport delays due to high volumes of flyers during the Christmas travel week (Stock Image)
Travelers at San Francisco International Airport stand in long lines waiting for flights. Over eight million people are expected to fly during the final two weeks of December
Most of the travel restrictions began Friday morning and are scheduled to last until between 6pm and 10pm ET tonight.
