The Green Bay Packers are supposed to host the Minnesota Vikings at Lambeau Field this weekend, but mass transit delays have put the game in potential jeopardy as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded flights all across the nation on Friday, November 13.
The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop that lasted for approximately four hours and resulted in a slew of flight delays and cancellations at every airport in the United States. The culprit was a telecommunications outage, according to reports from several national news outlets.
“All flight departures in the United States have been halted after a major telecommunications outage posed safety concerns, according to the Federal Aviation Administration,” CNN reported in its latest live update a little after 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. “The issue stems from a problem with network routers that cascaded nationwide, an airline source told CNN.”
Even after the FAA lifted the ground stop on Friday evening, a mountain of logistical problems are certain to remain at every airport in the country before air travel returns to some semblance of normalcy.
The world of sports is liable to start truly noticing the effects on Saturday, which is when the Vikings would normally board a plane and head to Wisconsin for their annual jaunt to Lambeau Field but now may need to make other plans. Luckily for fans of both teams, the cities are close enough that even if Minnesota can’t fly to Green Bay, the team should be able simply to drive there and avoid any other major complications.
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While some college and professional sporting events, including football, basketball and hockey games, may end up postponed or rescheduled, the Vikings-Packers contest should go off as planned on Sunday afternoon, November 15.
That is because even if the Vikings can’t fly to the game, they are close enough to hop on a bus, head east on Interstate 94 for somewhere between four and five hours and get to Green Bay the old fashioned way.
“This flight freeze could wreak havoc on NCAA/NFL football this weekend if it lingers,” Will Ragatz of BMTN Sports posted to X Friday. “Wouldn’t be ideal if the Vikings have to bus to Green Bay tomorrow, but at least it’s a much shorter trip than several other scheduled games.”
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A hitch in Minnesota’s travel plans will also mean a hitch in the team’s general routine, as well as the routines for many of its players, which translates into a disadvantage for the Vikings if they can’t hop on a plane and zip one state over and end up having to drive instead.
But this has been a week of tumult and change in Minneapolis anyway, after the team supposedly soft benched an injured Kyler Murray for quarterback Carson Wentz who bombed against the Buffalo Bills on Monday night, leading the Vikings to trade a third-round pick to the Las Vegas Raiders for Kirk Cousins just one day later.
Head coach Kevin O’Connell announced 48 hours prior to kickoff that Cousins will start for the Vikings in Green Bay on Sunday, so things were already going to be different. And maybe that means Minnesota will be more mentally and emotionally prepared for the rigors of a changing travel routine this weekend, lean into it and handle it with aplomb.
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