FAA Orders & Later Lifts Nationwide Ground Stop Update – AEW Using Charter Flights For Talents Affected, WWE Talent Stranded After 11/13 SmackDown Show

As noted before, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had issued a notice on Friday grounding all flights nationwide in the United States due to a communication issue affecting air traffic control in the country. This order was later lifted on Friday evening and revealed to have been caused by an update to the private communications network that connects the U.S.’ air traffic control system that had crashed and rebooted as a result. Among those impacted included AEW for their Full Gear 2026 event in Phoenix, Arizona while WWE wasn’t impacted for their SmackDown show in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and NXT live event in Cleveland, Ohio.

The Wrestling Observer’s Bryan Alvarez reported that his sources stated that there were still a handful of AEW wrestlers who still hadn’t made it to Phoenix for AEW’s Full Gear event as of Saturday morning.

Those spoken to reportedly stated that AEW have sent charter flights to pick those talents up and fly them over for tonight’s event.

AEW CEO Tony Khan announced in a live stream earlier today on Twitter that all of the talent who have been scheduled to work at Full Gear have made it Phoenix on time and will be on the show. Khan also announced that there have been changes made for the planned card for the Saturday Tailgate Brawl pre-show though.

In a follow-up report, Alvarez reported that many of WWE talents who worked at Friday’s WWE SmackDown show are currently stranded at the airport until likely this Sunday due to travel disruptions caused by the FAA’s recent grounding situation.