The Federal Aviation Administration briefly halted departure from New York and Philadelphia airports after an intern at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center in Long Island tested positive for COVID-19 today. The person had been out of the facility since March 17, and the FAA cleans the affected areas.
As of 2:45 PM ET, the agency had lifted the groundstop order, according to the Associated Press.
The center of Long Island, which mainly provides high-altitude cross-country flights, remained open. But the FAA has diverted flights “as part of a long-standing contingency plan to ensure continued operations.”
The FAA said in a statement that it is “working with local health officials and employee representatives to determine how many personnel may have interacted with the intern in recent days.”
CNBC reported that there are staffing problems due to coronavirus in FAA facilities across the country; flights from McCarran International Airport on Wednesday in Las Vegas was diverted because an air traffic controller there is “potentially tested positive” for COVID-19.
Update March 21 14:51 ET: Adds that the FAA has lifted the ground-stop command
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