Several major airlines nationwide grounded their planes Monday morning because of a software outage.
Mr. Trippler said the requirement stemmed from the force majeure clause of ticket contracts, which went into effect with the nationwide grounding.
For a brief period, officials said, the group considered whether to impose a nationwide ground stop as the government did after hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Minutes later the Federal Aviation Authority ordered a nationwide ground stop, and within the next hour (at 10 03 am) the fourth aircraft, United Airlines flight 93 from Newark, New Jersey, crashed near Shanksville in the Pennsylvania countryside after its passengers informed of events via cellular phone attempted to overpower their assailants.
After learning of this second hijacking involving an American Airlines aircraft and the hijacking involving United Airlines, American Airlines Executivee Vice President Gerard Arpey ordered a nationwide ground stop for the airline.
The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop for planes heading into the airspace managed by the Palmdale center, disrupting travel in many cities.
Individual F.A.A. controllers, facility managers, and command center managers were creative and agile in recommending a nationwide alert, ground-stopping local traffic, ordering all aircraft nationwide to land, and executing that unprecedented order flawlessly.
Details of the campaign will be unveiled later this month, according to the activists who say they will spend the winter consolidating their position, broadening their support base and refining communication between Occupy grounds nationwide, using online tools being developed by their IT team.
However, construction employment could pick up in December as homeowners rebuild in the Northeast and as the housing sector continues to regain ground nationwide.
The Socialist Party leader, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, hailed "a clean and clear victory for our party" nationwide, despite losing ground in Barcelona, where Socialists will nevertheless still govern.
