Passengers queue at El Paso International Airport after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration lifted its temporary closure of the airspace El Paso, Texas, U.S., February 11, 2026. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez
Something as simple as party balloons or a drone was capable of crippling a major American city, and the mayor is not only furious, he wants accountability.
Speaking to CNN on Thursday, El Paso, Texas, Mayor Renard Johnson said his city woke up on Wednesday to find its airspace shut down. El Paso is one of the top 25 largest cities in the U.S., with a population of around a million and nearly 259 square miles.
He was flabbergasted by how a drone could shut down their airspace for ten days.
"It just doesn't make sense to us here," he said, noting it never should have happened.
"You know, we haven't heardany good reasons why theydidn't coordinate with us. Wehave an emergency operationcenter that should have beenlooped in. At the very least," he added.
The city was plagued by "complete chaos and confusion," he told CNN.
At one point, reports said the military "could not assure civilian flight safety," which was the reason for the shutdown.
"Kids were afraid to go to school. Parents were calling," said Mayor Johnson. "They didn't know what to do. So this was a major disruption in a city the size of El Paso, the sixth-largest city in the state of Texas, with the 22nd largest in the United States. And you can't just come in and shut down the airport without giving us any notice or telling us why you're doing it."
He equated it to shutting down airports in Dallas, Houston or New York and said that in those cases it wouldn't be done within a few hours and without coordination with state and local leaders.
"To shut us down for ten days with no explanation, that was unacceptable," he continued.
The mayor went on to explain, "You just can't do that."
As of yesterday, he said that his office still hasn't heard anything from the FAA, and the only information they have is coming from the media.
"We don't know anything more today than we knew yesterday. All we did is we woke up and your space is shut down for ten days, and that's what we're going on today. I mean, you know, the stories that you're reporting about drones and balloons and, and things that's the information we're getting," Johnson closed.