The FAA and the White House asked Congress on Friday 13 November for a further $30.1 billion to overhaul the US air traffic control system, Reuters reports. The request came on the same day as the nationwide ground stop.
Congress approved $12.5 billion for the overhaul last year, according to the same report. Reuters describes the stop as the latest sign of strain on a system beset by equipment failures, communications problems and controller shortages.
Reuters also cites the flight tracking service FlightAware as putting the number of flights delayed or cancelled because of the ground stop at nearly 7,000. That is lower than the figure of more than 7,800 reported earlier by Fox Weather, but the two cover different things: the FlightAware count is for flights hit by the stop itself, while the Fox Weather figure is for the whole day. They should not be added together.
Under the stop, planes already in the air may land but those on the ground cannot take off, Reuters says. The Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, has attributed the stop to "a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers".