During a press conference, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford explained that the grounding of flights was due to instability linked to routers and networking equipment, specifically mentioning products from Cisco and L3Harris Technologies.
The FAA opted for a precautionary grounding order due to the inability to identify the root cause of the disruptions, which could potentially affect aircraft connectivity. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy highlighted the need for an overhaul of air travel infrastructure, requesting $50 billion from Congress for improvements.
L3Harris stated that it is working with other tech companies to transition airspace communications to a fiber-optic system, having completed over 70% of this conversion. Bedford clarified that the router updates are part of routine operations and not related to the FAA's $12.5 billion modernization efforts