ALLEN COUNTY, OH (WLIO) - It's a slow day for air travel after an FAA system outage. Our Nathan Kitchens went to the Allen County Airport to learn more about the outage and how that affects small airports like Allen County.
It was a rocky start for airlines across the country after the FAA ordered all flights to be grounded. The ground stop was eventually lifted by 9 a.m. Wednesday, however, the delays and cancellations continued to snowball. The issue stemmed from an outage with Notice to Air Missions, or NOTAM. This is an essential resource when scheduling flights. We spoke with the assistant manager at the Allen County Airport to learn more about the software that went down.
"Basically, it tells them that the destination that they're going to. It tells them if everything is functional or if there are any outages in any part of their equipment, or if there's any runway shutdowns, closures. It can also tell them the conditions of the runway too," explained Jennifer Shimp, assistant manager at Allen County Airport.
How would a NOTAM outage impact general aviation airports like Allen County? It wouldn't halt operations by any means, but pilots would need to pick up the phone to get any updated information.
"All they would have to do is give us a call and say 'hey, is all your equipment operational, do you have any updates to provide as far as changes from maybe yesterday or the day before,' so we would be able to tell them, 'no, we are fully functional, and there's no new NOTAMS that we've published," said Shimp.
The airport serves as an important piece to our economy, seeing hundreds of flights coming in and out each month. It serves as a port for corporations like Meijer and Proctor & Gamble. Local flight schools use it because of their long runway.
"We get a lot of local flyers. We've got about 35 aircraft based here on the field, so most living locally. And then we have a lot of traffic in the area from flight schools. Bluffton, Bellefontaine, and we have our own flight school here," stated Shimp.
They also serve the medical field with organ donor flights.
"They are usually here for a few hours getting the parts they need and they're in and out pretty quick. It's kind of a big deal when they're here because we'll have a whole crew out here, you know, ready to go fast," said Shimp.
