July 16, 2026

Austin, San Antonio, and Tampa are in thunderstorm delays this morning, and the Northeast's overnight ground delay programs have ended

AUS (to 2 PM ET) and SAT (to noon) are in 30-minute thunderstorm arrival delays with ZHU severe-weather-avoidance routes and coded departures active across the Houston airspace. TPA has the same 30-minute delays to 10:30 AM. The overnight FAA ops plan puts SAN, SFO, ATL, and the New York-to-Washington metro in the POSSIBLE column this afternoon, though the post-webinar plan refining that forecast hasn't landed yet. All four of last night's Northeast GDPs have expired.

The convective system that ran the New York metro through two-hour ground delay programs last night, and held Newark in a staffing-driven GDP past midnight, cleared overnight. By 7:30 AM ET the action had shifted south and west, and the national airspace is starting today from a clean slate.

The FAA's Houston Center (ZHU) airspace is where it's firing first. At 6:57 AM ET the Command Center issued arrival delays for San Antonio (SAT, up to 30 minutes, thunderstorms, running to noon ET). A minute later came the same for Austin (AUS, up to 30 minutes, to 2 PM ET). Neither has escalated to a ground stop or ground delay program. These are arrival delays and airborne holding, the metering tier below a GDP. The National Weather Service has a flash flood watch for the Hill Country, I-35 corridor, and Rio Grande Plains through today, and a tornado touched down near San Antonio yesterday morning.

ZHU followed with a severe-weather-avoidance plan (SWAP) for its airspace including the AUS and SAT terminal areas (7:30 AM to 12:30 PM ET), and coded departure reroutes for AUS and SAT (to 2:30 PM ET), telling operators to fuel for possible playbook reroutes, holding, and tactical adjustments. That is the en-route management layer running underneath the terminal arrival delays.

Tampa joined at 7:24 AM ET with arrival delays up to 30 minutes from thunderstorms, running to 10:30 AM ET. No other Florida airport has an active advisory yet.

What the afternoon holds

The post-1115Z planning webinar (7:15 AM ET) passed 15 minutes before this issue's cutoff, and the Command Center's full-day ops plan that normally follows it within an hour or two hasn't been published yet. The best forecast available is the overnight ops plan ADVZY 015, which frames this afternoon as multi-hub:

• SAN (San Diego): ground stop or delay program POSSIBLE after 1400Z (10 AM ET)
• SFO: ground stop or delay program POSSIBLE after 1500Z (11 AM ET)
• ATL: ground stop or delay program POSSIBLE after 1800Z (2 PM ET)
• LGA, JFK, PHL, EWR, IAD, DCA, BWI, MCO: ground stops or delay programs POSSIBLE after 1900Z (3 PM ET)
• MIA, FLL: POSSIBLE after 2000Z (4 PM ET)

All of those carry POSSIBLE, the FAA's lowest-confidence tag. Convective forecasts fizzle. Reagan National's forecast morning ground stop fizzled seven straight days this month, July 7 through 13. The post-webinar plan could pull markets in or out, and when it lands it may restructure the whole list. The honest read for now: Texas and Florida are the live problem this morning, and San Francisco, Atlanta, and the Northeast corridor are the watch list for this afternoon.

En-route initiatives are forecast for ATL, CLT, and the DFW/DAL area (after 2 PM ET), the New York and Philadelphia airspace and Phoenix (after 3 PM ET), and Denver (after 4 PM ET).

One item already on tonight's calendar: SpaceX's Starship Flight 13 is scheduled to launch from Starbase, Texas (Boca Chica) at 2245Z (6:45 PM ET), with pre-mission coded departure routes active through 17/0051Z (8:51 PM ET) and a Starship west route expected after 2230Z. That adds another traffic-management layer to the Texas airspace tonight, on top of the DFW/DAL arrival routes already in the afternoon convective forecast. Yesterday the D10 TRACON at DFW went into a staffing-driven ground stop at 5:37 PM ET; if those Dallas routes fire again today, the Starship closure stacks on top.

Rebooking: United's South Texas waiver is the only active one

United's "South Texas Thunderstorms" waiver covers Austin, Houston (IAH), and San Antonio, with rebooked flights required to depart by July 17. That makes tomorrow the last day to use it. The waiver waives change fees and fare differences for same-cabin, same-city rebooking. American, Delta, and JetBlue have not posted new waivers for today's storms as of this writing. If your flight is through AUS, SAT, or IAH today or tomorrow, check United's travel-alerts page directly rather than assuming the old terms still apply.

Tracking (July 16): Last night's New York disruptions are over. Newark's staffing-driven GDP (Philadelphia TRACON Area C, averaging 199 minutes) expired at 1:59 AM ET. TEB's GDP was canceled at 12:27 AM. JFK's GDP was canceled at 10:11 PM last night. LaGuardia's GDP was canceled at 8:09 PM. The NY Area hotline was deactivated at 10:01 PM. The D10 TRACON staffing ground stop at DFW (5:37 PM yesterday) was canceled at 6:29 PM. The national airspace began today with zero active ground stops or delay programs at major hubs, and the morning thunderstorms in Texas and Florida are the first new disruptions of the cycle.