Greg Sankey says FAA ground stop came at ‘worst possible time’
By Jacob Moss
Published:
The college football world was thrown into chaos on Friday afternoon when the FAA grounded flights across the country for several hours following serious communications failures.
The disruption forced several Week 11 SEC matchups to be pushed back, with the showdown between Ole Miss and Oklahoma in particular being delayed by almost 24 hours after the Rebels were unable to secure suitable transportation to Norman in time for Saturday’s scheduled kickoff.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey was in New York for a series of meetings when the situation began to unfold, and he told ESPN’s Marty Smith on Saturday morning that the FAA grounding came at the “worst possible time.”
“It was a national emergency, and we learned information real-time just like everybody else,” Sankey said. “It’s a critical time. To have all air travel shut down, no crews… Friday afternoon. Just the worst possible time… There’s no information, so you don’t even know what the questions are. It’s unprecedented, and we will have to prepare differently for a future with this possibility in mind.”
Crisis management is a key part of any leader’s job, regardless of the industry, but it’s difficult for anyone to prepare for a situation like this unfolding on a Friday afternoon. Given all the moving parts and logistical challenges involved, it’s probably a miracle that only one game had to be rescheduled for a different day.
Sankey’s comments regarding all of the turmoil from Friday afternoon just goes to show how much planning and preparation truly goes into each and every one of these games that the average fan never sees.
