Flights have been grounded in Dallas while the FAA is clearing the ATC facility

• The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a ground stop for flights departing and arriving in Dallas while cleaning up the facility after two workers tested positive for COVID-19 this week.
• Flights are also temporarily prohibited from landing or taking off from any airport under the airspace, which stretches across North Texas from parts of New Mexico to parts of Louisiana and Arkansas.
• Twenty-two people who work at the facility have reported COVID-19, the highest rate of any Federal Aviation Administration facility in Dallas.
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Flights to and from Dallas have been halted as the air traffic control center responsible for high-altitude airspace for the area undergoes a two-and-a-half-hour clean-up process after a facility employee tested positive for COVID-19.

This is the second case this week in which facility workers tested positive for the virus, with the last accident occurring recently on Monday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. website Offers. Six Federal Aviation Administration facilities in the Dallas area have reported positive COVID-19 cases, four of which have reported cases multiple times, but this facility has seen a whopping 22 cases, including Wednesday.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a ground stop for all aircraft that land within the facility’s airspace during cleanup, which extends beyond the metropolitan Dallas area. Its airspace includes skies over most of northern Texas, southern Oklahoma, western Arkansas, western Louisiana, and eastern New Mexico.

Flights to Dallas that have not yet taken off are booked at their respective departure airports while flights en route to the area will likely need to enter reservation or transfer patterns to other airports outside of airspace until the ground station is lifted.

The Dallas Air Traffic Control Center typically coordinates high-altitude flights departing and arriving at Dallas / Fort Worth International Airport and Love Field in Dallas. The airports are home to American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, respectively, which operate hundreds of daily flights out of the city.

Planes scheduled to fly through Dallas’s extensive airspace may need to be re-routed around, which could increase flight times for other planes. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed to Business Insider that the facility remains open, but is likely operating with a reduced workforce due to the cleanup.

The first notable COVID-19 incident affecting sensitive air traffic control facilities occurred in March when it occurred The air traffic control tower at Midway International Airport in Chicago has been forced to close, Grounding of flights to and from the airport. In Las Vegas, the prolonged closure of air traffic control facilities at McCarran International Airport has meant that aircraft must communicate directly with each other to coordinate their movements.

Air traffic controllers retreated at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to a secondary location while they were The watchtower was closed for cleaning in March. However, not all airports have backup facilities for their air traffic control operations.

Airway control centers are usually closed overnight for cleaning to reduce the impact on daytime flights, but a recurrence of cases this week has likely prompted an afternoon cleanup. The ground station is also coming during what is proving to be the busiest travel time for the pandemic as it ends One million passengers a day pass through US airports on the days around Christmas and New Year.