The Federal Aviation Authority has lifted the ground stop that halted aircrafts from departures and left many travellers stranded across the U.S.

Disruption in radar communications triggered the ground stop on Friday.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy attributed the suspension to an outdated air traffic control system overwhelmed with data.

“What we have is an incredibly old air-traffic control system,” Mr Duffy said Friday at a White House presser. He explained that telecom routers “actually got overloaded with data.”

The ground stop forced airlines to cancel 8600 flights as intending travellers roamed the airport, constantly checking for updates, while others returned home and some waited in long queues for their pre-checked luggage to return home.

Though suspension of flight departures lifted, airlines might still struggle to recover from the disruption in arranging new flights to appease travellers.

Mr Duffy sought the ground stop to solicit $50 billion funding from Congress to upgrade the declining air traffic facilities and systems, and prevent recurring groundstops.  

“It’s going to continue to fail,” Mr Duffy said. “How many times does this have to happen for Congress to give the money to fix it?”

Secretary of homeland security, Markwayne Mullin,

said officials were working to determine whether the groundstop was related to a cyber attack.

“We are still looking, and we’re not going to rule it out.” Mr Mullin stressed.