Air travel disruptions across the United States could persist into Monday as the Donald Trump administration extended its timeline for a return to normal operations following a nationwide ground stop that triggered widespread flight cancellations.

US Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy said on Sunday that while airspace operations were expected to improve during the day, airlines might not fully recover until Monday because aircraft and flight crews had been left out of position by the disruption.

“We’re going to see things come back to normal today, but probably fully normal tomorrow,” Duffy said.

The disruption began after a technical failure linked to work replacing ageing communication cables used by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for air traffic control. The ground stop prevented aircraft from taking off and caused major delays across airports nationwide.

By Sunday morning, 1,460 flights within, into or out of the US had been cancelled, according to FlightAware.

The incident has intensified concerns over the state of America’s ageing air traffic control infrastructure, with officials calling for major investment to modernise the system.

Duffy said the government inherited outdated equipment, including some radar systems dating back decades, and called on Congress to approve $50 billion to upgrade the nation’s air traffic control network.

He also rejected calls for his resignation over the disruption, arguing that the administration was dealing with infrastructure problems inherited from previous governments.

President Trump similarly blamed the Biden administration, describing the FAA under his predecessor as a “disaster” and accusing it of spending heavily without adequately improving the system.

The comments have sparked a political dispute, with Democrats arguing that Republicans have controlled Congress during Trump’s administration and therefore had the opportunity to address the infrastructure concerns.

Friday’s disruption was only the second nationwide ground stop in US airspace since the September 11, 2001 attacks, highlighting the scale of the incident in one of the world’s busiest aviation systems.