The Minnesota Vikings may not be able to catch their flight to Green Bay as scheduled on Saturday for a game against the Green Bay Packers in Week 10, but it’s a contest the teams will play regardless.
On Friday, November 13, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a nationwide ground stop, which has grounded every flight in the country until further notice. The culprit is 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.”
As of early Friday evening, government officials had provided no hard timeline for when travel would resume across the country. Even when it does, there are sure to be a mountain of logistical problems to sort through at every airport in the United States before air travel returns to some semblance of normalcy.
That, in turn, has already caused a wave of flight cancellations that are likely to continue piling up as more time passes without a solution. While people pretty much everywhere are already feeling the impact in one way or another just hours into the saga, 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.
Vikings Can Drive to Green Bay for Packers Showdown
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.”
Vikings Already in Upheaval After Trading for Kirk Cousins
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.
Vikings Catch Lucky Break Amid FAA Chaos Threatening Packers Game