I suspect they mean that inbound flights from international airports may still take off (probably in part because the FAA can't _really_ stop them, in part because the volumes are much lower and thus more manageable, and in part because one might hope that by the time it takes to get to the US from many international destination, the incident will be resolved).

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SoftTalker 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Very unlikely that any international flights bound for the USA are taking off. Probably many are turning around or diverting if they are not more than halfway there.

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waiwai933 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm not following this very closely, but I've not seen any reports of diversions for domestic flights, so I think it'd be unlikely for international flights. The report is just for a ground stop, which is just a stop in departures; normally a ground stop would allow flights already in the air to travel to their normal destination.

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kelnos 6 hours ago | parent [-]

That reasoning doesn't really make sense. A flight from outside the US that is inbound could divert to a non-US airport that isn't impacted by whatever is going on, depending on where they are and what their fuel status is. A domestic flight doesn't have a non-US airport to divert to.

(Sure, a flight near the Canadian or Mexican border could in theory divert to a Canadian or Mexican airport, but it's unlikely many people on those flights have their passports with them.)

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waiwai933 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Ah, my point was more that if the action being taken isn't "get planes on the ground _now_" and so the US airspace remains open for traffic already in the air, then it's unlikely they're trying to get international planes to either divert or return.

	▲	ethbr1 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This definitely feels like 'unable to manage normal volumes at normal speed' rather than 'unable to manage anything.' In which case freezing domestic (and the huge amount of load it contributes to ATC) but keeping international normal makes sense. Of course... the side effect is the "fun" that creates for incoming international flights with domestic connections...

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Marsymars 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> (Sure, a flight near the Canadian or Mexican border could in theory divert to a Canadian or Mexican airport, but it's unlikely many people on those flights have their passports with them.)

There must be some procedures in place for this - I pretty regularly take domestic (Canadian) flights that pass over the US where I don't carry my passport.

	▲	askvictor an hour ago \| parent [-]
		A situation kind of like this happened to a relative in England; their international flight was diverted (I think due to weather) to a domestic-only airport; due to lack of immigration & customs facilities, everyone had to remain on the plane until it could take off again (presumably after being refueled) to get to an international airport

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tavavex 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A domestic US flight can still divert to Canada. There usually are special arrangements that allow people on a diverted flight to stay short-term while the situation is resolved, even if they don't have the required documents or visas.

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the_mar 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

they let eithad take off from boston like 40 min ago

	▲	cogogo 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That is interesting and why i was wondering if they meant outbound flights but screwed up the language. I had assumed (probably wrongly) operators who should be risk averse would not want their US bound flights taking off under these conditions.

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jameshart 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And I assume it becomes case by case at some point because they eventually start running out of space on the ground at airports.