An air traffic center serving Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport was closed for cleaning for several hours Wednesday after an employee tested positive for the coronavirus, which caused flights to take on one of the world’s busiest hubs.
The disruption in the center – which affects high-altitude air traffic for most of northern Texas, northern Louisiana, eastern New Mexico and the southern parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas – caused ripples of delays and flights all over land led.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, which said Wednesday night that a unique confluence of events and bad weather led to the disruption, the Fort Worth Traffic Control Center suspended operations from 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. .
The FAA said the employee last worked at the center on Christmas Day, which was within a seven-day window that required a deeper level of cleaning in the areas where the employee was possible.
“Because the cleaning of controllers required leaving the control room temporarily, the FAA declared a ground stop that kept traffic at departing facilities,” the agency said on its Facebook page. It said other FAA facilities supported the closure and worked the traffic around the airspace in question.
According to an FAA website, there have been 22 positive cases reported in the center. It was not immediately clear if there were any previous closures at the facility, which according to an FAA training manual is responsible for 140,000 square nautical miles of airspace.
Both Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Dallas Love Field have reported significant disruptions in their operations.
“The FAA has closed the airspace in and out of DFW Airport until 5 p.m. Central Time,” Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport said in a statement. ‘This is due to the cleaning up of the sanitation of foreign FAA facilities that control the airspace in DFW. This will cause flights to be delayed or possibly canceled. ”
The airport, which served about 75 million passengers before the pandemic last year, encouraged travelers to ask airlines if they were changing flights.
A spokesman for Love Field, which operates the city of Dallas, said departure and arrivals at the airport were temporarily suspended.
“The estimate we received for return to normal operations was 1-2 hours and that was about an hour ago,” spokesman Chris Perry said in an email around 4:45 p.m.
About an hour later, an FAA spokesman said a ground stop had been lifted. She also noted that flights operated by the airspace served by the control center continued to function and could communicate with other control centers. The spokesman said air traffic could still be affected by the weather in the area, where there were thunderstorms on Wednesday night.
“The FAA takes the safety of its employees and the flying public very seriously,” the agency said on its Facebook page. “Note that during this event, pilots have always had contact with air traffic control employees, whether in the Fort Worth Air Traffic Center, or other air traffic control facilities.”
The Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport is a hub for American Airlines, which has put a barrage of social media posts from travelers venting their frustrations. An airline spokesman said nearly 60 flights had been diverted.
“Our teams throughout the system continue to work to look after our customers who are affected, and we apologize for the inconvenience,” the spokesman said.
Isaac Thurber said his flight from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to Dallas-Fort Worth Airport was hit by the ground stop.
“In the middle of my flight, the pilot comes on the intercom to tell me that the DFW airspace has been closed due to ‘covid-related issues’ and that we do not know what to do,” said Mr. Thurber said on Twitter. ‘Now we’re landed in Oklahoma City. Must love 2020. ”