Seem like there's a major communication problem. All LA-area airports have been shut down for departures and arrivals.

If you're traveling tonite, or someone's who is. Please check before heading to airport.

Most flights enroute have been diverted or are on hold, circling.

Power outages at theAir Traffic Control Center. They lost computers , phones , everything around 6:00pm.

YIKES!! Scarlett, please ensure this does not happen in Portland on 7/29. Thanks.

P_M, If I have to go out on the runway and wave a flag for the pilot, you will land in PDX safe and sound LOL

yes..and LGA is also having outages that is affecting EWR as well.

Thank you, Scarlett, I do appreciate your efforts. Of course I would do the same for you. We Fodorites must stick together.

SAN is also affected. Northern Cal seems to be okay. Lots of flights from the East Coast have landed in PHX, TUS (Tuscon), even ELP (El Paso).

Just heard PHL is also having problems.

I'm certain O'Hare is having sympathy pains... we always do.

Yes, EWR, LGA, JFK all seem to have shut down. PHL is still seeing take off.

So, basically "something" took out all airports at the two largest metropolitans in the country.

And......as of 10pm tonight we have been having a SEVERE thunderstorm with high winds and hail. At least the heat is broken at least for tonight, now 71, earlier it was almost 100 in my backyard. I think the official temp in Central Park was 97,,,,,,,,we're melting, melting, melting, meltin.....

LGA is having power outage, and EWR/JFK are showing weather-related delays. Major major mess.

Real strange thing on the LA power outage was the fact the generators didn't kick in til 2 hours later - that's a problem they will have to take care of for the future. They said a minor car accident caused the initial outage. They are flying again now but will take some time to get everything caught up.

It was the Palmdale center, wasn't it? I wondered about their generators too. Odd.

If you still think there IS NO SUCH THING AS GLOBAL WARMING, then you must not have visited Los Angeles this summer!

rkkwan, northern California airspace belongs to the Seattle Center. Next one south is Oakland Center, followed by Los Angeles Center in Palmdale, where the outage occurred. Airlines are required to fly under instrument flight rules, and all aircraft in airspace above 18,000 feet are required to maintain those rules. Jet engines are notoriously fuel-hungry at low altitude (and 18K is low, for a jet), so it is cheaper to either go somewhere else or to hold at the most economical power setting. None of the airport towers in the area were directly affected, but an outage at an air traffic control center has a ripple effect.

Bobmrg - Thanks for the explanation. I saw a lot of Houston-Bay Area flight changed course - i.e. made a right turn - last night from the El Paso area to a more northern route to the Bay Area, avoiding the LA-area airspace.

I'm just now hearing on the radio that the Palmdale center's backup generators kicked in immediately, but then they failed too so they had to find backup for their backup. That has not happenend before apparently. They often go to the regular backup because of blackouts, but this was different.

This center controls air traffic in Southern California above 18,000ft. Below 18,000ft, planes in So. Cal are under the control of Southern California TRACON, which is in San Diego. The difficult thing was to get planes down to 18,000ft from a cruising altitude of 33000ft or so without incident.

We were catching a flight home to PDX out of Oakland and it was luckily only delayed by about 30 minutes or so (a stopover flight from Orange County)...it was a Loooooooong 30 minutes extra though with a tantruming, tired and otherwise irritable two-year-old. I'm sure everyone around me thought the same! But I am thankful our flight wasn't cancelled like several seemed to be, probably because of this problem.

Las Vegas yesterday too.
Hopefully not today.