FAA says communication breakdown delaying flights

ATLANTA — The Federal Aviation Administration said a communication failure Tuesday at a Georgia facility that processes flight plans for the eastern half of the United States was causing flight delays around the country.

An FAA Web site that tracks airport status showed delays at some three dozen major airports across the country. The site advised passengers to "check your departure airport to see if your flight may be affected."

FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen in Atlanta said there are no safety issues and officials are still able to speak to pilots on planes on the ground and in the air.

She said she did not know how many flights were being affected, and she added that officials might not have figures until Wednesday.

Bergen said the problem that occurred Tuesday afternoon involves an FAA facility in Hampton, Ga., south of Atlanta, that processes flight plans. She said there was a failure in a communication link that transmits the data to a similar facility in Salt Lake City.

As a result, the Salt Lake City facility was having to process those flight plans, causing delays in planes taking off. She said there were no problems with planes landing.

"There will be flight delays," Bergen said. "It could be any location, because one facility is now processing flight data for everybody."

Salt Lake City International Airport experienced only minimal delays Tuesday afternoon, said Dave Korzep, airport superintendent. Airport officials were expecting some late arrivals Tuesday evening from airports most affected by the communication failure.

"We're probably going to see some ripples from this," Korzep said, "but they won't be huge."

Bergen said there was an unrelated hardware problem at the Hampton facility on Aug. 21 that resulted in issues processing flight plans, but she was unsure if there were any flight delays.

A spokesman for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world's busiest airport, did not immediately return a call seeking comment on the impact there from Tuesday's episode. Bergen said officials at the Atlanta airport were entering flight data manually to try to speed things up.

Discount carrier AirTran Airways, which has its hub at the Atlanta airport, said in a statement that because of the suburban FAA center difficulties it was taking up to an hour for the FAA to get clearances to the towers for departures. Delta Air Lines Inc., which has its main hub in Atlanta, said flights were processing for takeoff, but slowly.