Airport in Gander, N.L., was ready to receive diverted passengers in U.S. flight stop

GANDER – An airport in a Newfoundland town known for its care of stranded plane passengers was on the ready Friday evening as flights were grounded for several hours in the United States.

Officials called around to hotels to get a sense of how many rooms might be available, and they made sure there were staff on hand who could keep the restaurant open, said Reg White, chief executive of the international airport authority, in Gander, N.L.

Though the airport was ready to welcome anyone who needed a hand, White said there was some relief when the so-called ground stop was lifted Friday night without any diversions to Gander — it meant the community Christmas craft fair could go ahead as planned in the airport lounge on Saturday.

“The Christmas craft fair was at stake!” White said in an interview Saturday. “Airport operations clearly comes first, but there would have been a lot of vendors and Christmas shoppers who would have been unhappy if it hadn’t gone our way.”

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration had a so-called ground stop order in place for more than four hours beginning Friday afternoon, citing communications issues affecting air-traffic-control centres. It was called off on Friday night.

Because of its key position in the airspace between Europe and North America, Gander’s airport has long, sprawling runways that could accommodate planes needing to refuel on transatlantic journeys, particularly in the Second World War.

When the United States shut down its airspace after terrorists hijacked planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, dozens of planes were diverted to Gander. The town was home to about 9,600 people at the time, and many came together to feed, house and comfort thousands of passengers, who were stranded there for days.

The story of their hospitality was turned into the hit Broadway musical, “Come From Away.”

American officials emphasized on Friday that the situation that forced the ground stop was nothing like 9/11.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters at the White House that nobody was ever in danger during the communications failure.

“There was never any lives at risk,” Mullin said. “There was no flights at risk. FAA was able to handle it.”

White said he didn’t brace for a huge onslaught of planes on Friday because there were no flights between Gander and the United States, nor was it a peak time for flights between the U.S. and Europe. But there was still a possibility Gander would be needed.

Percy Farwell, the town’s mayor, said he had “informal communications” with airport officials and Nav Canada to be ready. Nav Canada is the privately run non-profit corporation that operates Canada’s civil air navigation system.

“Everybody (was) putting out feelers and starting to quasi-prepare in the event that we were going to be impacted,” Farwell said Saturday, speaking to The Canadian Press from the packed craft fair inside the airport’s lounge.

There were almost 100 tables set up with goods for sale, and the event was going well, he said.

Farwell said that for him, the incident Friday was a reminder that Canada’s air-traffic-control technology is excellent, and deployed around the world. Flight-grounding communications breakdowns aren’t impossible in Canada, but they’re less likely, he said.

“It’s sort of something we should be proud of in Canada, that the air-traffic-control system is very much state of the art,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 14, 2026.