A US pilot messaging system has been experiencing a temporary outage on Saturday and it could eventually lead to flight delays in America on Sunday, the US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. Duffy, informing about the outage on X, added that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is working to rectify the issue and restore the Notice to Air Mission" or NOTAM system. “There is currently no impact to the National Airspace System because a backup system is in place. The FAA has set up a hotline to communicate with aviation stakeholders and will send notices every 30 minutes with updates on the system's status,” Duffy said. The transportation secretary further added that passengers should check with their respective flight operators about the status of their planes on Sunday, adding "there may be some residual delays tomorrow morning." Duffy informed that “FAA activated its contingency system to supplement and support preflight briefings and continue flight operations.We are investigating the root cause and we will provide updates.” The NOTAM system is critical as it provides safety notices to pilots, flight crews and other users of US airspace. However, Reuters quoted a Southwest Airlines spokesperson who said that there was no delay in their flights on Saturday and “and we have people and processes in place if the situation continues into tomorrow." Early on Sunday, Delta Airlines and United Airlines said that their flights were not experiencing any problems. “All our operations continue as normal right now. We have up to date NOTAM info through backup procedures,” a Delta Airlines spokesperson said as per Reuters.
