Flight disruptions: Florida hit by air traffic control issue; Denver by freezing fog
Pete Muntean, CNN • Updated 2nd January 2023
(CNN) — Two far-apart states are seeing fresh air travel problems on Monday.
Air traffic control issues triggered hours-long flight delays to Florida airports, the Federal Aviation Administration told CNN. And the main airport in Denver, Colorado, is seeing substantial cancellations and delays because of a fresh round of winter weather.
Late Monday afternoon, the FAA told CNN that the issue in Florida was resolved.
"The FAA is working toward safely returning to a normal traffic rate in the Florida airspace," the agency said in a statement.
Earlier in the day, the FAA told CNN that it had "slowed the volume of air traffic into Florida airspace due to an air traffic computer issue."
A publicly available airspace status notice showed flight delays early Monday afternoon averaging nearly three hours with a maximum delay up to six hours.
The FAA said the issue was with the En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) system at the Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center.
That center is responsible for controlling millions of cubic miles of airspace for commercial flights over Florida.
A spokesperson for Miami International Airport attributed delays there to a Florida-wide "FAA computer system issue."
The FAA said earlier that Monday would be a busy post-Christmas travel day with 42,000 flights scheduled, "with possible heavier volume from south to north."
Some of Florida's key airports serving tourists have been affected by the air traffic computer problem, according to flight tracking site FlightAware.
They include Miami International Airport (MIA), Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL) and Orlando International Airport (MCO).
New trouble at Denver
About 750 flights originating or destined for the Denver International Airport were either delayed or canceled Monday because of inclement weather, according to FlightAware.
As of 4:20 p.m. ET, about 285 flights set to depart Denver International were delayed, and almost 130 flights were canceled, FlightAware said. Almost 215 flights set to arrive, were delayed and just over 130 were canceled.
According to CNN Weather, Denver has been reporting freezing fog with temperatures in the 20s since 6 a.m. local time.
Visibility has been at or below a quarter of a mile all day. Light snow fell overnight, but the primary reason for the delays and cancellations is the freezing fog and low visibility.
The airport at Denver was particularly hard hit last week during Southwest's service meltdown.
