The Federal Aviation Administration briefly issued a ground stop for flights heading to Nashville International Airport on Oct. 7 as airports across the United States faced air traffic staffing shortages amid the government shutdown.

In a now-canceled advisory, the FAA said the ground stop was in effect until at least 8 p.m. local time and would impact flights destined for Nashville. The agency cited "staffing" as the cause for the ground stop.

Earlier on Oct. 7, the FAA said Nashville air traffic control was facing significant staffing shortages and implemented a ground delay at the airport from 4 p.m. to 11:59 p.m. All inbound flights to Nashville will take off later than expected to limit the total number of flights entering Nashville airspace at any given time.

The average delay at Nashville International Airport was over two hours, and the maximum delay listed was over three hours by 4 p.m. on Oct. 7. The delays continued to persist by 8 p.m., according to the latest FAA alert.

The reason for the staffing shortages was not immediately clear.

On Oct. 6, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned that the government shutdown was adding stress to already overworked and understaffed air traffic controllers. Duffy said some air traffic control towers have seen up to a 50% reduction in staffing since the shutdown began, and some areas were seeing increases in controllers calling in sick.

"If we don't have controllers, we're going to make sure the airspace is safe. So what we do is we'll slow traffic," Duffy said Oct. 7 on Fox News' "Fox & Friends."

FlightAware, a flight tracking website, said more than 3,400 U.S. flights had been delayed on Oct. 7, including 25% of flights at Nashville. Severe weather is also affecting flights across the nation.

Contributing: Hadley Hitson, Nashville Tennessean; Reuters

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: FAA issues brief ground stop at Nashville airport amid staffing shortages

Reporting by Thao Nguyen, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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