El Paso Airport Shut Down By The FAA For Special Security Reason

The FAA shut down the EL Paso Airport starting 11:30PM local time, Tuesday night and it will remain closed until 11:30PM Feb 20th.

This was abrupt. Local and State civilian and military authoring received no prior notification.

This affects 1,000 flights, nearly half served by Southwest Airlines.

I did a search on when the last time a US airport was shut down for special security reasons, and it turned up no results. Flights are diverted at times, for a short period of time, when someone like the President or Vice President is landing or taking off, but this is highly unusual.

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exexec · 70-79, C

It is highly unusual. They shut down some airports during the 9/11 event, but I think that is the only other time it has happened.

Northwest · M

@exexec During 9/11 the FAA grounded ALL flights within the USA and in and out of the USA. But yes, you seem to be right, I think this is the first time a single airport was shut down and for a predetermined period of time.

Security related work is usually done at the San Antonio location, but even that does not involve shutting the airport down.