A Federal Aviation Administration nationwide ground stop on Friday prompted some sports teams and officials to miss connections, change travel plans, and shift game times.
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A Federal Aviation Administration decision to ground all flights nationwide for several hours on Friday left teams scrambling to reach their destinations for games over the weekend.
Transportation officials said the stoppage followed “extraordinary circumstances” connected to communications issues at regional air traffic control centres.
After the ground stop was lifted Friday night in Washington, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said, “We’re going to allow for general aviation, those larger movements, to take place as a priority. Smaller movements will take lower priority.”
In college football, multiple ranked teams were affected while departing for road games, including Utah (No. 2), Texas (No. 8), and Tennessee (No. 9), with schools making changes such as returning to campuses during the stoppage.
No. 19 Mississippi’s football game at Oklahoma was moved from Saturday to Sunday at 1 p.m. EST, and Auburn’s trip to Mississippi State was made by bus as the SEC pushed the Tigers’ start time from noon EST to 4:15 p.m.
The Big 12 said the Kansas-West Virginia game scheduled for 5:30 p.m. EST would move up to 3:30 p.m. because Kansas had arrived on time, and it also shifted the Arizona State-UCF game from 2:30 p.m. EST to 5:30 p.m. after a delayed Arizona-to-Florida flight.
In the NBA, the Cleveland Cavaliers played in Miami on Friday night but did not fly home until Saturday morning, leaving roughly eight hours before playing the Mavericks, and the team had to rebook hotel rooms after checking out earlier.
Several NHL games were scheduled for Saturday, with the Panthers among those that reached their destinations before the stoppage and the Sharks reaching Utah later Friday.
In soccer, the Utah Royals were in the Washington, D.C., area ahead of a National Women’s Soccer League semifinal Saturday against the Washington Spirit, while the Kansas City Current trained in Kansas City on Saturday with plans to travel to New York later in the day ahead of their semifinal against Gotham FC.
The story also noted that the U.S. national team’s match against Haiti in Miami on Saturday was unaffected because both teams and officials were already in town for a CONCACAF Nations League quarterfinal series.
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