Winnipeg airport asks passengers to check flight status amid U.S. stoppage

All flights nationwide across the United States have been grounded. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued the halt, citing extraordinary circumstances and safety. The impact will be far-reaching, including here in Canada. Our Gavin Axelrod is at Winnipeg Richardson International Airport monitoring the situation there. So, Gavin, what do we know so far? Well, the first thing just to make very crystal clear is that the FAA in the States says this incident was not caused by a security threat. There is no active threat. They're saying that there is no evidence so far that would suggest that this may have been a cyber attack. What they are saying is that this is a telecommunications problem that is being investigated, but out of an abundance of caution, all flights in the US have been grounded until further notice. We've been here at Winnipeg's airport for about an hour and we actually in the last few minutes just received a statement from the WAA which says at the moment Winnipeg International Airport is not experiencing a significant impact. We are working closely with all parties to support the airport's safe and efficient operations. We suggest that passengers check their flight status with their airline before arriving here at the airport and that echoes a message that we've heard from a lot of airports throughout the country for people to... check the status of their flights and to make sure that they are up to date on all that information before they travel. NAVCAN here in Canada says that the systems in our country are operating as normal and so again, this incident the FAA says in the States has not been caused by any kind of security incident and there's an investigation ongoing into what's going on there. All right, Gavin, I know that you were speaking with people just a few moments ago on an outbound plane going to Minneapolis that was already seeing delays or cancellations there. So how rare is it to have one of these ground stops really across the country in the U.S.? Yeah, and just before we spoke to you, there was people who walked by us and said they're not sure if they're going to make their cruise. And so people are scrambling to kind of figure out information about their flights. But this is very rare. This is only the second time post 9-11 that this has happened. In 2023, another nationwide ground stoppage in the States was ordered for a few hours, and that was because of a computer problem. But again, we just want to make clear that the FAA or the Department of Homeland Security in the States says that this was not caused. by a security incident and if you're traveling here in Winnipeg, just check your airline before you fly. Make sure all your information is up to date because you don't want to be dealing with any issues.