Hours-long flight delays at Florida airports caused by FAA air traffic control issue

MIAMI – Air traffic control issues triggered hours-long flight delays to Florida airports on Monday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

By late afternoon, the FAA said that the issue had been 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 said 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 of 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).