Nationwide ground stop

The • gall to go up at a the same press conference about the status of a broken system he's been in charge of for two years and say he needs more money.

And why didn't we see Administrator Bedford there?
 
say he needs more money
Oh hey, Mark Wanke Mullin voted against the effort in 2021 to get the FAA $25B with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Partisan politics.

u84fw0w.jpeg
 
Sounds like some hotels might be getting yelled at pretty soon.

Not sure if it was dynamic pricing automation/pricing service
and/or on property price gouging,
but some crazy price increases as it was all unfolding.

the rental car ops probably had similar and plenty "DGA(eff) I'm taking it one way"
 
Saw this posted on the Reddit machine. Can't confirm independently, of course:

The AI software company linked to U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's family is

Air Space Intelligence (ASI), a Boston-based tech startup. [1, 2]

Key Details

The Contract:
In June 2026, the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)—led by Sean Duffy—awarded Air Space Intelligence a multi-year federal contract worth up to $875.9 million to develop and deploy an AI-powered air traffic management and flow management system known as SMART (Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories). [1, 2, 3]

The Connection: Public and investigative reports revealed that the political action committee (PAC) of Air Space Intelligence donated $2,500 in March 2026 to the congressional campaign of Michael Alfonso, Sean Duffy’s son-in-law, who ran for a House seat in Wisconsin's 7th district. [1, 2, 3]

Recent Developments: Following the nationwide rollout of the SMART AI tool across FAA air traffic control centers, the system and the company faced increased scrutiny and political questioning, though Air Space Intelligence publicly denied any connection to a subsequent nationwide FAA flight ground stop. [1, 2, 3]

(Note: Scott Duffy, a relative in tech consulting, also operates separate AI training and advisory ventures such as AI Mavericks, though the major federal contract recipient tied to the Secretary's family network is Air Space Intelligence.) [1, 2]
 
Sounds like some hotels might be getting yelled at pretty soon.

Not sure if it was dynamic pricing automation/pricing service
and/or on property price gouging,
but some crazy price increases as it was all unfolding.

the rental car ops probably had similar and plenty "DGA(eff) I'm taking it one way"
Stuck in Punta Cana. Getting a hold of Crew Services was and still is a joke. Went on three different sites trying to book rooms for the crew. Found one and when I went to checkout the price jumped $2K. Finally found a hotel for all of us. I just paid it and will get reimbursed later. There was an Air Canada crew in the lobby that had been waiting 3 hours to try and get a hold of their crew services.
 
Sooo many secondary location-specific ground stops happening today by airline request because of limited gate space.
 
I wonder how much of that $50 billion Duffy asked for is going to go towards modernizing and streamlining the talent acquisition, training, and retention program?
$0.

F.A.A. Admin Bedford wasn’t even going to give us the pathetic 2.8% raise congress authorized for us in April with backpay from Jan of this year. It took pressure from a reporter nobody had ever heard of before and then a congressional hearing for them to cave on that, and 95% of us still haven’t seen the money. The F.A.A. is claiming they have to input the raise and backpay manually on all controllers, and they’re going alphabetically and it could take months. Union had essentially nothing to say about any of it too, they’re useless at best and captured at worst and worried about their post career consultancy gigs over the memberships needs.

We’ve been completely left behind as a workforce. This admin has crapped on us every chance they’ve gotten, and we’ve had very little support or backup from our union. People are legit quitting mid career now which was previously unheard of, because the pay just hasn’t kept up at all and we’ve now extended our 2016 contract through to 2029 with no membership vote, because our union leadership is afraid of the Trump admin.

It’s an awful time to be an ATC in this country and most days I regret my choice to do this instead of fly, lol. It’s a big reason I haven’t been active here or other aviation places much…just sucks what this job has become. Sorry for the soapbox rant lol

Looking forward to going into work and getting absolutely slammed tonight.
 
We’re working a cancellation package of 864 flights. As soon as we got the email all flights were canceled last night I bailed and got my own room. I have yet to hear anything from company.

I can’t help but think of the financial repercussions of this and the resultant actions if this was a private company screwing up this bad.
 
Dunno but basically got FL direct to NH last night… and for the first time in decades- didn’t get a new route through Washington center.

I’d have been ok VFR as long as individual centers were still up and we could check if for flight following along the way- just without hand offs. If radar was down and centers were blind- I’d not go VFR. Wasn’t an option for us though as we were under B and at a towered airport.
 
Anyone follow the money yet.


The AI software company linked to U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's family is

**Air Space Intelligence (ASI)**, a Boston-based tech startup.

**Key Details**

**The Contract:** In June 2026, the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)—led by Sean Duffy—awarded Air Space Intelligence a multi-year federal contract worth up to $875.9 million to develop and deploy an AI-powered air traffic management and flow management system known as **SMART** (Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories).

**The Connection:** Public and investigative reports revealed that the political action committee (PAC) of Air Space Intelligence donated $2,500 in March 2026 to the congressional campaign of **Michael Alfonso**, Sean Duffy’s son-in-law, who ran for a House seat in Wisconsin's 7th district. \[[1]

**Recent Developments:** Following the nationwide rollout of the SMART AI tool across FAA air traffic control centers, the system and the company faced increased scrutiny and political questioning, though Air Space Intelligence publicly denied any connection to a subsequent nationwide FAA flight ground stop.

*(Note: Scott Duffy, a relative in tech consulting, also operates separate AI training and advisory ventures such as* [*AI Mavericks*]
 

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Duffy asking for $50 billion to fix ATC while that homeland security dude says we can’t confirm yet if it was a cyber attack or not.





Um, does Duffy know Repubs owned the White House, Senate, and House of Reps for the past 2 years? Why didn’t these idiots get the $50 billion passed for the FAA?



WHAT A JOKE.

You can 100% blame them.

These clowns had 2 yrs of full control of Congress. They absolutely could have passed this so called 50 billion for the FAA. They CHOSE not to.
I say this with absolutely no malice, and I know that in the past that I've been exceptionally malicious towards you.

But I just read this post and I had to laugh out loud. People are staring at me, with faces, like WTAF.

It's such a wild take coming from you. Diabolical as the kids say.
 
It's fun to reflect that the same company that appears to be responsible for this "push to Prod on Friday" screw-up also makes a whole bunch of avionics in your airplanes. Edit: L3Harris.

Though that's primarily a result of mergers & acquisitions more than anything based on merit; below a certain level of corporatecritter they are probably basically different companies under a common brand, where otherwise-mediocre middle managers hop among to re-spark their stalled careers (or be recruited as Tom Homan-esque pliable henchmen).

No other depictions of "what happened" bears any resemblance to that word salad Secretary Road Rules struggled through instead of the FAA Administrator being a participating party to an aviation system issue. The internet meme is that Flavor Flav on Twitter was more timely & coherent about the situation than the duo of 'Duffy & Mullin In the Afternoon'.
 
Figured I'd see how our supposed new ultra resilience recovery from the recovery IROPs is going. Short answer? Not great.

I'm supposed to head to sim for bounces later today and once again scheduling has no idea where people/airplanes are or what they are doing. My deadhead later is missing an FO who was apparently reassigned an earlier flight today, but isn't seemingly operating that one either. Another flight currently has no bird, but it still showing on time.

Sooo got that going for us.

And look, I understand it's a very big deal but every time we have one of these events whether self caused or not it's a circus. But don't worry, we'll get it right next time.
 
I still haven’t received my hotel assignment from yesterday yet alone what the plan is. BlueJuice Factory recoveries from IROPs are legendary. But it seems like all parties are scrambling for answers.
 
I still haven’t received my hotel assignment from yesterday yet alone what the plan is. BlueJuice Factory recoveries from IROPs are legendary. But it seems like all parties are scrambling for answers.
lol I got a plan but never got a hotel forrequired rest. At 0500 I said f it and just took a flight home. Still can’t get a hold of tracking to let them know I shan’t be participating in my double dh to go home leg.
 
Hotel at 2am.

At a FBO in SLC for 11 hrs since we landed, total. Waiting to see if we can go, then timed out, then no hotels.


Today is a crap show. Double DH through SEA to LA, and looks like the SEW inbound to here is cancelled.
 
Figured I'd see how our supposed new ultra resilience recovery from the recovery IROPs is going. Short answer? Not great.

I'm supposed to head to sim for bounces later today and once again scheduling has no idea where people/airplanes are or what they are doing. My deadhead later is missing an FO who was apparently reassigned an earlier flight today, but isn't seemingly operating that one either. Another flight currently has no bird, but it still showing on time.

Sooo got that going for us.

And look, I understand it's a very big deal but every time we have one of these events whether self caused or not it's a circus. But don't worry, we'll get it right next time.
Just know that this is all the pilot group’s fault.
 
Hotel at 2am.

At a FBO in SLC for 11 hrs since we landed, total. Waiting to see if we can go, then timed out, then no hotels.


Today is a crap show. Double DH through SEA to LA, and looks like the SEW inbound to here is cancelled.

Hope they had cookies.

Got to talking with a C17 driver up here while the wife and I were out at dinner - He's stuck up here without orders as their bird was doing TnGs up in NH. They're McGuire based, but couldn't get back because of the grounding. We joked about taking a C17 VFR into B and try to plot a plan, but it was really all just jokes and hoping this gets sorted. Least he had a good dinner in the north end.
 
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