NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Officials at the Nassau Airport Development Company (NAD) yesterday reported more than a dozen flight delays as a result of a ground stop imposed by the US Federal Aviation Authority due to a computer issue.
The issue resulted in thousands of flight delays and cancellations across the United States Wednesday. The FAA briefly halted all domestic flight departures across the US Wednesday morning and then lifted the ground stop around 9 am ET after it restored a system that provides pilots with pre-flight safety notices.
The knock-on effect was felt at The Bahamas’ major gateway LPIA yesterday.
Jonathan Hanna, NAD’s VP of operations initially confirmed that nine flights were delayed yesterday with an average delay of an hour to about an hour and a half; with the longest delay being roughly one hour and forty minutes from airports along the East Coast.
Hanna subsequently confirmed yesterday afternoon that an additional six flights were delayed.
“Those challenges had a knock-on effect on the rest of the flights scheduled for the day and so this presented further challenges downline for the airlines,” said Hanna.
A week ago LPIA was impacted by delays as a result of air traffic control issues at the Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center.
The Ministry of Tourism explained at the time that Miami’s En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) system was at the heart of the issue, as it is responsible for the operations of commercial flights over parts of The Bahamas and over Florida.
