The FAA ground stop ended Friday night, so why are flights still canceled?

Cancún flight cancellations kept appearing on the airport's boards Saturday morning, hours after the FAA lifted the nationwide ground stop that had frozen U.S.-bound traffic across the Mexican Caribbean on Friday afternoon.

The Federal Aviation Administration lifted the order at 8:15 p.m. Eastern on Friday, the same hour in Cancún and Tulum, more than four hours after it took effect at 3:54 p.m. "Before clearing flights to resume, we thoroughly tested our systems to confirm they were stable and that operations remain reliable," the agency said on X.

Clearing the order did not clear the terminals. Aircraft and crews ended the night out of position, and the recovery is running through the first full weekend of the winter season, in a region that lives on U.S. and Canadian travelers. For anyone flying out of Cancún or Tulum in the next few days, the backlog now matters more than the outage that caused it.

Cancún flight cancellations reached 42 by midnight

Before the stop was lifted, the evening report from Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, or Asur, listed 66 affected operations at Cancún International Airport: 52 departures to the United States and Canada carrying 10,924 passengers and 14 arrivals with 2,973 passengers, according to El Universal and Marcrix Noticias. In total, 13,897 passengers had their itineraries disrupted, although not all were stuck inside the terminal.

Delays then turned into cancellations. Through midnight, Asur recorded 36 canceled departures covering 34 unique flights, five canceled arrivals, and a Porter Airlines round trip to Toronto, Grupo Animal reported. Marcrix Noticias removed duplicate entries from Asur's lists, last updated at 11:30 p.m., and counted 42 canceled operations.

Canadian carriers took the largest share. WestJet lost nine departures and one arrival, and Air Canada six departures and three arrivals. Toronto alone accounted for eight canceled routes. On the U.S. side, flights to New York's JFK, Miami, Atlanta, Denver, and San Francisco were the most affected.

Across Mexico, the Federal Civil Aviation Agency (AFAC) reported that 193 flights and 18,002 passengers were affected by restrictions on U.S.-bound operations.

Why flights stayed grounded after the order ended

Asur warned Friday night that departures would resume gradually. Each flight still needed its own authorization before leaving the terminal, even after U.S. authorities had cleared takeoffs. The airport operator also pointed to crews: pilots and flight attendants work under limited duty hours, and Asur said decisions on those limits rest with each airline.

Inside terminals 3 and 4, the wait was long and mostly silent. Some passengers bound for the United States and Canada spent up to eight hours trying to learn the status of their flights, Uno TV reported.

Alessia Amendolia, who lives in Playa del Carmen, reached the airport at 2:30 p.m. for a 4:30 p.m. flight, traveling with her two-year-old daughter. She was first told of a one-hour delay, then of a cancellation, according to Grupo Animal. Erick Solís, booked to Orlando, said the first two hours of delay came with no information at all. Boarding was then pushed back by up to four more hours before the flight was canceled.

Passengers who had already cleared customs waited hours more to recover checked bags. Staff from the state tourism secretariat worked in both terminals, helping travelers arrange ground transportation.

The disruption carried into Saturday. By 7 a.m., Cancún's flight list showed further cancellations, among them Delta and JetBlue arrivals from the United States and a JetBlue departure to Fort Lauderdale scheduled for 8:05 a.m., according to El Heraldo de México. In the United States, FlightAware counted 3,374 cancellations and 1,008 delays nationwide on Saturday morning, ABC7 reported.

Tulum's two delayed departures, and a different kind of exposure

Tulum's Felipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport does not report through Asur. It is run by the state-owned Grupo Mundo Maya, and the public account on Friday came from Governor Mara Lezama, who reported two delayed departures: American Airlines 3781 to Dallas-Fort Worth and United 1601 to Houston, the second delayed by 95 minutes, with an estimated departure of 6:20 p.m. In Cozumel, United 1867 to Houston was also delayed.

None of the reports reviewed by The Tulum Times through Saturday morning listed cancellations at Tulum.

The smaller airport had far less to lose on Friday, with about ten flights on an average day. Its weakness shows up when something does get canceled. Most of its U.S. routes run once a day, so a traveler who loses a seat waits for tomorrow's flight or drives about 90 minutes north to Cancún, where the backlog is now concentrated.

What Duffy blamed, and what remains unconfirmed

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the FAA's switches and routers "actually got overloaded with data, and they went down," producing inconsistent data across the system, NBC News reported. Multiple sources told CBS News a different story: an update to the FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure network, operated by L3Harris, caused it to reboot and crash.

Neither account had been officially confirmed by Saturday morning. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication of a cyberattack. Duffy also warned that "you will have more of these" unless the system is upgraded, according to ABC7.

Delta and United waivers still cover this weekend

Travelers with U.S. connections from Cancún or Tulum still have some room to rebook without penalty.

• Delta issued a waiver for travel on Friday and Saturday, allowing flight changes at no extra cost, according to ABC7.
• United is waiving change fees and fare differences on a new United flight departing between November 12 and November 20, 2026, in the same cabin and between the same cities.
• American Airlines had not confirmed a waiver as of Friday evening, according to TheTravel.

Under U.S. Department of Transportation rules, a passenger whose flight is canceled and who declines the alternative offered is owed a refund. The AFAC has advised travelers to check their airline's official channels before leaving for the airport, a step that matters more from Tulum, where a wasted trip to the terminal can cost half a day.

The question still open is the cause. Until the FAA confirms whether overloaded routers or a network update brought its system down, travelers planning a winter trip to the Mexican Caribbean have only Duffy's word that it could happen again.

Were you stuck in Cancún or Tulum when the FAA ground stop took effect, and how did your airline handle rebooking? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes.