Complications with the fueling system at Boston Logan International Airport Sunday night caused a ground stop for several hours, resulting in flight cancellations and delays, according to the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport).
Flights continued to land at the airport but there was congestion on the tarmac due to a lack of gates for arriving planes, an audio recording from ATC.com indicated.
The issue has now been resolved and flights have resumed as normal, Massport said.
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The fueling issue added to earlier delays on Sunday caused by thunderstorms in the area.
The delays came during what the Federal Aviation Administration said would likely be the busiest Fourth of July air travel period the country has seen in 15 years. Over 300,000 domestic flights were managed by air traffic controllers over the holiday weekend, the FAA said Monday.
BOSFuel, which operates Logan Airport’s fuel system, said in a statement provided to ABC News by Massport that the system that delivers fuel to planes experienced a low fuel pressure event Sunday night, triggering an automatic shutdown of the system in accordance with safety protocol.
“The team responsible for operation of the fuel system immediately responded and was able to reestablish fuel flow to full capacity to the airport by 10:00 p.m. ET,” the BOSFuel statement said. “The technical issue that caused the shutdown has been addressed and no further disruption to the fuel system is anticipated.”
According to an air traffic control recording from ATC.com, a Logan Airport controller described the airport’s tarmac during the outage as a “parking lot” for planes due to the congestion caused by lack of gates because of the fueling delay. The controller advised the pilot with whom he was communicating to ensure he had a gate assignment before departing for Logan.
The FAA issued a brief ground stop for Logan Airport in September 2024 due to a BOSfuel outage, according to Boston ABC affiliate WCVB.
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