Impacts of nationwide flight cancellations reverberate through Portland airport Saturday

Travelers were dreary-eyed Saturday morning at Portland International Airport after the Federal Aviation Administration halted nearly all flights nationwide for several hours the day earlier.

Southern California residents Rebecca and Steve Packard were visiting their son in Portland and were due to fly home Saturday, a straight flight to San Diego.

Unaware that nearly all flights nationwide had been grounded Friday, they got up at 5:30 a.m. and headed for the airport — only to find their flight had been canceled.

“Unfortunately, I did not turn on the news last night, so I had no clue that anything was amiss until we got here,” Rebecca said.

The FAA lifted the ground stop at about 6 p.m. Friday, but by then, many travelers’ plans had been upended entirely.

At Portland International Airport, 144 flights were canceled Friday, according to Port of Portland spokesperson Kara Hansen, though she couldn’t confirm if each cancellation was caused by the ground stop.

“I feel for the people who are missing weddings and major events, cruises that aren’t going to wait for them — whatever — because of this,” Rebecca said.

Arizona couple James and Nisha Kirchgatter were bound for Yonkers, New York, to attend Nisha’s friend’s wedding.

It would have been their first time visiting the Empire State. But when their flight was canceled, their layover in Portland became their last stop, and they slept in the airport.

“My wife pretty much slept on the bench, and I tried to make sure I was security for her so she could get some good rest,” James said.

Nisha was able to find a flight home Saturday through another airline. But she said the ticket was nearly $600, “so we had to reach out to the family to help us get back home.”

At a news conference Saturday morning, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the communications failure that led to the stoppage happened during an upgrade to old air traffic control equipment. He said a contractor had been working to replace a section of the system’s old copper wire with a new fiber-optic cable, which led to a system malfunction.

“Virtually every single institution in America has gone from copper to fiber, from analog to digital — just maybe the FAA is the last one to be doing this work,” Duffy said.

In 2025, Congress approved $12.5 billion in funding for the FAA to transition from copper to fiber. Duffy called for an additional $30 billion to complete the project.

Rebecca said, “We’ve been hearing this for years that the system needed to be updated. Does it give me confidence that it won’t happen again? No, it’ll happen again, I’m sure.”

According to the FAA, the U.S. air travel schedule should be back to normal by the end of Sunday. Hansen said travelers are encouraged to continue checking with their airline for the latest flight updates.

For some, those updates are becoming increasingly overwhelming.

Vancouver, Washington, resident Yaretzi Vargas has been going back and forth between her phone and the airport’s arrival and departure board, wondering whether her evening flight will get canceled.

She was supposed to arrive in Cancún, Mexico, Saturday to celebrate her 21st birthday. But having missed the first day of her stay at the hotel, she’s effectively lost $500.

“I’m just, like, really upset that I have no control over this situation,” Vargas said. “It’s so annoying and frustrating.”