Atlanta airport departures halted indefinitely

Our coverage of the national nightmare at airports across the country continues tonight here on Fox 5 and Fox Local. If you're streaming with us this evening as we take a live look at Los Angeles International Airport, where evening is breaking out west, Philadelphia Airport, New York's John F. Kennedy, and here at Hartsfield-Jackson International, the world's busiest kind of of a strange sight, Ariel, as we continue our coverage of this. Massive hours-long ground stoppage, not seeing any planes rolling down the runway at any of these airports across the United States as this outage continues. No, we haven't. And there have been reports of airplanes taking off at some airports here in the United States. And we understand that some of those... Airlines that have been able to depart have been evaluated on a case-by-case basis. So something we're going to continue to monitor. But this ground stop is in effect because of a communications issue. Federal officials not saying much more beyond that. But hopefully we can get answers as the evening wears on. We expect the president and some other federal leaders to give us an update. The Dickens administration, Mayor Dickens, City of Atlanta, closely monitoring the situation we understand of the nationwide Federal Aviation Administration ground stop affecting flight operations right here behind us. At Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, that is a live picture, folks, of what's happening there. We just saw a plane rolling down the runway a couple of seconds ago. I wonder if it was landing or departing. We do understand that some international departures have been allowed to get out. Likewise, some flights headed out to Hawaii have been able to lift off from some of our West Coast airports. But the mayor is saying that, quote, the ground stop currently in effect indefinitely, aircraft that were already in the air. Permitted to land, however, no flights will be allowed to depart until the FAA lifts this ground stop. The safety and well-being of passengers, airport employees, and flight crew remain under our highest priority. That from Mayor Andre Dickens, who... You know, the airport is in his jurisdiction, so he's kind of closely monitoring the situation as well. And I understand because of this situation, Police Chief Darren Shearbaum here in Atlanta has said that they've actually increased security patrols and put more Atlanta police officers at the airport than what might normally be there, just because there will be an influx of passengers and people trying to figure out where to go. So that's something we're going to continue to monitor. Tom, one thing that I find so interesting when we're kind of looking at maybe some of the historical background, When things like this have happened in the past, it's not that this is unprecedented in the terms that hiccups haven't hit us before, but of this scale and magnitude, I think is what really has people questioning. Well, I mean, for those of us who were around back then, 9/11 was really the last time we remember going outside. And hearing an eerie silence in the air with no air traffic, and that wasn't hours, that was days. And then we've had two others, but again, have lasted a much shorter period of time. And as I mentioned earlier, those ground stoppages were in the morning where airlines, yes, had the rest of the day to kind of catch up. Right. But in these kinds of situations, it becomes a snowball effect. And so not only are we here in the evening when... Tens and tens of thousands of passengers, and we're going to hear the stories in the morning. When you join us for Good Day Atlanta tomorrow morning, and we're going to be out at the airport again, you're going to be hearing from travelers that have spent the night sleeping on cold, hard floors in the airport. So this is turning into an overnight situation where people have checked their bags already and have no belongings with them. And it's just kind of... waiting this situation out until they can get to where they're trying to go. Yeah. And, you know, talk about trying to get where you want to go. This is an impossible situation to be looking at. You're looking at monitoring departures and arrivals here at Orlando Airport. And this is just incredible because so many of these flights I see canceled, canceled. I see delayed until a certain time. No word on when this nationwide ground stop is going to be lifted. There are a handful of green and I can only imagine that that is happening so far into Thank you for having me. When we're thinking about this situation, you know, two questions kind of come to my mind, Tom, when I'm thinking about, on one hand, we're being told, of course, it's a communications issue, which we know the FAA has been plagued by some outdated equipment. Modernizing their infrastructure has been a key goal of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's administration, something he's been trying to roll out. But it's... Not good, however, you spin it, because you're thinking about, okay, telecommunications issue, is it due to outdated infrastructure, or is it something more nefarious, and have officials confirmed something else that could have happened? They don't believe it's a cyber attack yet, according to DHS, but what if new details do come in? All right, so as we wait for the president and the White House happening at any moment. Air travelers, people trying to take vacations, get home maybe a little bit early for the holidays, business travelers, what have you. It's not only impacting them. We've got college football teams also caught up in the mess as we take a look at this travel. Now, a number of teams, this is courtesy of On3, multiple SEC teams stuck, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Texas. All right. All traveling to their Saturday games. Oh, my goodness. Tomorrow. We're going to have to see if they get there or they're getting rescheduled or what. Auburn has switched to a bus for its trip to Starkville, we understand. But Missouri is already in Athens, we believe, to play the Bulldogs. So that will continue forward. But looking off to my right here at our sea of live cameras and our Christopher King is at the airport, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. And Tom, last we spoke to him, he was talking to some frustrated track travelers, and it seems lines are getting longer behind him. I'm curious to see where you're at, Chris, if we can talk to you and see what things are looking like. Yeah, Ariel and Tom, we are in an area where folks are trying to check in and trying to rebook. I want to show you how long this line is over here. sort of black, if we can take the camera and point down over this way. This line extends way back into the terminal. They keep coming out and making announcements here on the line, telling folks they can't get refunds here online, but they're going to have to call over to customer service for Frontier Airlines. Let's come back. around here now again, you can still see how long this line is over here. These folks have been waiting for a while. They're getting tired. They're getting frustrated. People have been in here for a couple of hours. Let's go now to a passenger who's been stuck in here for a couple hours. Sir, what is your name? Ronnie Delgado And where are you coming from? Where are you going to? I was with my family in Albany, Georgia, and now I'm heading to Las Vegas. What happened to your flight? My flight got canceled. So how long have you been waiting here? We've been here for about two hours waiting. And is this at all frustrating? It is. As you can tell, family with their children want to get home. And we don't know how long it's going to take. We are here waiting. Have you heard anything from your airline? Nothing. Nothing so far. We went to the booth and asked them, well, what happened to our flight? They said, well, they're not checking anybody. They're not checking any bags. We can wait until we hear something. We are waiting. How frustrating is this for you? Oh, my God, I'm tired. I want to get home. This weekend in Las Vegas, I'm here in ATL. I don't know how long I'm going to be here, but we are patiently waiting. So go get a hotel, sleep at the airport. What do you do now? We're waiting to hear confirmation from our airlines. Once that concludes, we make our decision whether to check into a hotel. I don't know. It's frustrating, very frustrating. If you're going to check into a hotel, you better do that soon before they all book up. Yes, yes, yes. Let's come back. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Good luck to you. Hope you can get a flight out. Let's come back out here live again and take a look over here. This is the baggage area. I think it was Russ who was asking before, or Courtney was asking about the bags. Well, you can see these bags are the conveyor belt. These, of course, are from people who are arriving. Arrivals are coming in. But it's the departures that are not taking off from Hartfield-Jackson. We just spoke with Chief Darren Shearbaum, Atlanta Police Chief Darren Shearbaum, a short time ago. He's walking through the terminal. He's reassuring passengers. And he told us that there is nothing new to report as far as public safety is concerned. Things are okay as far as that is concerned. But what he did say was that they've dispatched. Extra police officers out here, they're going to keep those extra police officers out here throughout the night to make sure that things are safe and that things stay normal. But for now, we have a lot of tired, frustrated passengers, people who've been waiting around for hours, people who have no idea. When they're going to get back out again. Tom, Ariel? Yeah, it's reassuring to hear that city officials at the very highest level, from the mayor who weighed in on the situation to Chief Darren Shearbaum roaming the airport there and Atlanta police making sure everybody stays safe is a good thing. Christopher, thanks. We'll have more coming up next.