FAA system outage impacting flights at Winnipeg airport

The Winnipeg Airport is pictured in an undated image

A computer outage at the Federation Aviation Administration (FAA) is causing flight delays in the United States on Wednesday, and is having an impact on departures at the Winnipeg airport.

According to a spokesperson from the Winnipeg Airports Authority, there are two U.S.-bound commercial passenger flights set to depart from the Winnipeg airport on Wednesday.

In a statement, the spokesperson noted that one of these flights has been delayed due to the FAA system outage. This is a Delta flight headed to Minneapolis. It was originally scheduled to leave at 6:55 a.m., but has been delayed until further notice.

The other flight – a Swoop flight heading to Phoenix –is still scheduled to take off on time at 9 a.m. However, the on-time departure is dependent on whether the FAA resolves the issue.

In a statement, NAV Canada said the Canadian NOTAM entry system experienced at outage at approximately 10:20 a.m. ET, and restored it at 1:15 p.m.

“We are still investigating the root cause of the failure. At this time, we do not believe the cause is related to the FAA outage experienced earlier today,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

NAV Canada said they had options in place to support continued operations.

One airline in Canada has offered an option to help passengers impacted by the outages.

In a statement, Air Canada said travellers who purchased a ticket before January 10 and were scheduled to travel to an airport in the United States on Jan 11 or 12 can change their flights for free up until January 16. This process can be done online.