Air traffic operations at airports in the São Paulo region were temporarily suspended on Tuesday, June 2, 2024, following a technical problem [1].

The disruption affected two of Brazil's busiest aviation hubs, causing a total halt of take-offs and landings. Because these airports handle massive volumes of domestic and international passengers, even a brief system failure can trigger significant scheduling delays across the national network.

The Força Aérea Brasileira (FAB), acting through its Departamento de Controle do Espaço Aéreo (Decea), said the interruption lasted 36 minutes [2]. The system failure occurred between 9:30 and 10:06 local time [2].

The outage impacted both Congonhas Airport and São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport [1]. According to the FAB, the suspension was the result of a technical fault in the air-traffic control system managed by Decea [1].

"As operações aéreas nos aeroportos da região de São Paulo foram totalmente restabelecidas," the FAB said in a statement to CNN Brasil [1].

Officials confirmed that flights resumed fully after the technical issue was resolved. The FAB said that landings and take-offs at Congonhas and Guarulhos were resumed following the interruption [2].

While the FAB described the event as a technical problem, other reports characterized the incident as a general failure in air traffic control [1]. The short duration of the outage prevented a long-term collapse of regional flight schedules, although the initial suspension created a temporary bottleneck for aircraft entering the São Paulo airspace.

“Air traffic operations at airports in the São Paulo region were temporarily suspended”

This incident highlights the vulnerability of centralized air-traffic control systems in high-density urban corridors. While a 36-minute outage was resolved quickly, the total suspension of operations at both Congonhas and Guarulhos demonstrates how a single point of failure in the DECEA system can paralyze the primary aviation gateway to Brazil's largest city.