US flights to return to normal after aviation authority lifts restrictions
Flights in the United States are set to return to normal after the country’s aviation authority announced an end to restrictions introduced during the government shutdown.
Airlines will be able to return to their normal flight schedules from 6 am on Monday, November 17, 2025, after the lifting of the emergency flight reduction order, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Sunday, November 16, 2025.
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The lifting of the order follows detailed reviews of “safety trends and the steady decline of staffing-trigger events in air traffic control facilities,” the FAA said.
Citing safety concerns as staffing shortages grew at air traffic control facilities during the shutdown, the FAA issued an unprecedented order to limit traffic in the skies. It had been in place since November 7, 2025, affecting thousands of flights across the country.
Impacted airports included large hubs in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta.
The flight cuts started at 4 per cent and later grew to 6 per cent before the FAA rolled the restrictions back to 3 per cent, citing continued improvements in air traffic controller staffing since the record 43-day shutdown ended on November 12, 2025.
The number of flights canceled this weekend was at its lowest point since the order took effect and was well below the 3 per cent cuts the FAA was requiring.
Data from aviation analytics firm Cirium showed that less than 1 per cent of all flights were canceled this weekend. The flight tracking website FlightAware said 149 flights were cut on Sunday and 315 were canceled.
The FAA statement said an agency safety team recommended the order be rescinded after “detailed reviews of safety trends and the steady decline of staffing-trigger events in air traffic control facilities.”
According to NBC News, staffing levels have now “stabilised,” enabling the emergency order to end. Staffing-trigger events dropped sharply, from 81 on November 8, 2025, to just one on Sunday.
Other restrictions, such as limits on visual flight rule approaches and commercial space launches, will also end. Under the original emergency order, reductions were set to climb to 10 per cent but officials froze them at 6 per cent before scaling them down to per cent on Friday, November 14, 2025.
Duffy said the agency can now “refocus” on controller hiring and building a “state-of-the-art air traffic control system the American people deserve.”
