A ground stop was issued for all flights arriving at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Friday morning due to weather conditions.
Flights departing from SEA were not stopped, according to SEA spokesperson Perry Cooper.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the ground stop was first issued for equipment outages at around 8:30 a.m. At 9:11 a.m., the ground stop alert was reissued due to snow and ice.
Cooper told KIRO 7 that the ground stop is a typical action for bad weather and low visibility.
“There have been ground stops at various times this morning for arriving traffic. This is how the air traffic control meters aircraft into SEA. They stop aircraft scheduled to come here before they take off, stopping them on the ground at their origination airport,” says Cooper. “With weather and low visibility, they space out aircraft landings for safety and cannot get as many aircraft into the airport. So, the ground stop helps slow down the traffic to space it out until things get cleared out.”
At 11:30 a.m., the FAA reported that the ground stop would be extended until 1:30 p.m., with a ground delay extended until 10:59 p.m., and an average delay of 62 minutes.
To check the status of SEA’s ground stop and delays, click here.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.