By: Natalie Kempton
On January 11th, the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) system halted takeoffs and landings around the country resulting in a delay of over 10,000 flights and cancellations of 1,300 flights. A malfunction of a computer system, Notice to Air Missions (“NOTAM”), which alerts pilots to current hazards, weather, and other issues that could potentially impact their flight, is to blame. Though officials traced the problem to a corrupted file in NOTAM and is currently not credited to be a result of a cyberattack, the malfunction is of a concerning nature that this important system can be disrupted so easily. Regardless of the cause, the implications of this major computer system disruption are expected to be significant as many customers and officials around the United States are calling for heightened implementation of cybersecurity measures and increased FAA funding to prevent similar occurrences from happening in the future.
Airline travel has been struggling to return to a form of normalcy after economic turbulence due to COVID-19 and surging inflation, which has greatly impacted U.S. travelers who desire to return to more consistent traveling for work or leisure. However, the January 11th outage put a damper on such a return. Even though the outage occurred at a generally slow time after the holiday travel season, consumer demands remain strong as travel returns to pre-pandemic levels. The January 11th outage came at a time when many airlines have been struggling to meet such demand, as seen in constant delays and cancellations which have become a commonality at this point in customer’s travel. Taken together with Southwest’s highly publicized operational meltdown and a string of ruthless winter storms just weeks before which left thousands stranded during the holidays, many consumers have been left wary of air travel.
On January 11th, 2023, the FAA system outage took place for approximately ninety minutes at 7:30AM EST. FAA officials believe the issue which caused the outage was due to a damaged database file which corrupted both the main system and its backup. This database file allows a computer system, NOTAM, to alert pilots in real time about issues which could affect their flight en route about hazards and weather-related issues. NOTAM is extremely important to maintain the safety of consumers, pilots, and air travel in general. The ripple effects from this event created significant delays and cancellations lasting for over a week. It is reported that over a 10-day period, 16,700 flights were canceled resulting in mass confusion with baggage and travel. While FAA officials and The White House emphasized that there was no evidence of a cyberattack, the possibility is continuing to be investigated. The mass grounding calls attention to massive vulnerabilities in America’s transportation system. Customers and officials outside of the FAA are left questioning the state of the industry and the IT infrastructure which led to this outage. The U.S. Travel Association President and CEO, Geoff Freeman, labeled this outage “catastrophic,” calling on officials to upgrade America’s transportation network. Some industry officials even compared the grounding to what occurred after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, as this may have been the first time the FAA has grounded all U.S. flights since that day.
U.S. airline customers have few options when it comes to the travel industry in comparison to other countries which maintain strong rail networks. Though the U.S. Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, emphasizes that the FAA will always err on the side of safety, many are nervous about the stability of the U.S.’s transportation system. Customers need to be able to trust the airline industry, therefore, this event is triggering a top-to-bottom investigation which will expose the gaps in technology infrastructure. Congress is also expected to review and investigate the safety of the airline industry as it relates to the FAA. This year, negotiations will occur to reauthorize funds for the FAA, which will likely cause a complex battle for increased resources and money to improve the FAA’s infrastructure. Both consumers and officials agree, it is extremely important that improvements are made to the FAA through such reevaluation in order to ensure that similar occurrences are prevented from occurring in the future, and so the U.S. can increase stability in its transportation sector.
Student Bio: Natalie Kempton is a second-year law student at Suffolk University Law School. She is a staff writer on the Journal of High Technology Law. Natalie received a Bachelor’s Degree in International Studies and Italian from the College of the Holy Cross.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog are the views of the author alone and do not represent the views of JHTL or Suffolk University Law School.
