July 10, 2026

Two waves of ground stops hit today, and the second one reached Atlanta and O'Hare

The first wave hit LaGuardia, JFK, Newark, and Dulles around lunchtime. Then a second wave fired from midafternoon into early evening, reaching Atlanta, Chicago O'Hare, and Baltimore on top of a return to Newark, LaGuardia, and Teterboro. By 9 PM ET every program had ended. Nationwide, 374 cancellations and roughly 3,700 delays. No airline has issued a new waiver.

The afternoon played out in two waves, and the second one was the bigger one.

This morning's issue tracked the first wave: ground stops at LaGuardia, JFK, Newark, and Dulles from roughly 12:30 to 3 PM ET, with Philadelphia's ground delay program pushing past two hours. By 3:22 PM ET those had wound down, and the FAA's post-webinar advisory pointed at a second window starting around 4 PM.

The second wave came, and it reached farther than the first. The FAA's operations summary listed ground stops at Baltimore, Dulles, and Chicago O'Hare until 6 PM ET, and at Newark, LaGuardia, and Teterboro until 6:30 PM ET, all for thunderstorms. Orlando was posting 90-minute arrival delays from storms. The advisory numbers (ADVZY 131 through 141) were all issued this afternoon.

Atlanta got the headline. The FAA issued a ground stop at the world's busiest airport at 2:30 PM ET, originally set to run until 5 PM. It was lifted early, but not before departure delays climbed to an average of 90 minutes and increasing. As of 4:50 PM ET, FlightAware counted 284 departing and 255 arriving flights delayed at Hartsfield-Jackson, with 12 cancellations. The FAA cited a "lack of routes from the West" as storms blocked the arrival corridors.

By 9:26 PM ET the FAA's airspace status showed zero active ground stops, zero active ground delay programs, and no active en route events. The convective day was over. What remained was the residual mess: nationwide, 374 cancellations and about 3,741 delays as of late afternoon (the figure aggregates FlightAware data), with LaGuardia the most disrupted single airport at 322 delays and 107 cancellations, followed by Philadelphia (266 delays, 35 cancellations), JFK (253 delays, 53 cancellations), Reagan National (190 delays, 33 cancellations), and Atlanta (181 delays, 19 cancellations).

That this was the first day all week where the forecast verified twice is worth pausing on. Monday's predicted 2 PM wall fizzled. Tuesday's fizzled. Wednesday morning's DCA ground stop never fired three days running. Today, both waves came, and the second one pulled in hubs the first missed. The FAA's advisories page and the NAS status page are the primary sources for tracking these programs.

No staffing triggers today. The controller shortage that compounded the July 7 disruption was absent, which is part of why the system absorbed the morning weather without a ground stop and why recovery is underway tonight.

No airline has issued a new travel waiver for today's storms. The holiday-weekend waivers from Delta (rebook by July 7), American (book by July 7), and JetBlue (complete by July 8) all expired earlier this week. If your flight was cancelled or significantly delayed today, check your carrier's travel alerts page directly: American, Delta, JetBlue, and United each post current advisories, but none has activated a fee waiver for July 9. The absence of a waiver after a day with eight airports in ground stops is itself a signal: airlines are managing this through rebooking and schedule recovery rather than inviting mass changes.

One quiet positive: Boston Logan handled the World Cup quarterfinal crowd without a ground stop. France played Morocco at 4 PM ET at Gillette Stadium, the last World Cup match at the Boston venue, and MassDOT's travel advisory focused on road and commuter-rail congestion rather than airport gridlock. Logan did see 158 delays and 14 cancellations, but those tracked with the regional weather pattern, not the match.

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