The breakdown forced the FAA to issue hours-long ground stops at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) and Dallas Love Field (DAL). The Dallas outage adds to a string of technical failures that have disrupted US airspace this year. FAA officials acknowledged that much of the US ATC system still runs on decades-old infrastructure that depends on external telecom providers. Crews have patched and upgraded components, but many facilities still depend on analog equipment and outside telecom providers to run smoothly. The Dallas outage, while technical in nature, added to the pressure controllers already face, the FAA acknowledged.