American Airlines aircraft park at their gates at Miami International Airport on October 25, 2024 in Miami, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
American Airlines Due to a technical issue, the company briefly suspended its U.S. flights Tuesday morning, bringing travel to a standstill at a time when airlines expect record demand for the holidays.
At 7:55 a.m. ET, the ground stop was lifted, an American Airlines spokeswoman told CNBC. The ground stop lasted less than an hour, but more than 900 major American Airlines flights were delayed, according to flight tracking site FlightAware. That was more than 38% of American's schedule for Tuesday and more delays than any other U.S. airline. However, only 11 main flights were canceled.
The airline's regional subsidiary Envoy also reported another 200 delayed flights. In addition to the earlier ground stop, American also faced thunderstorms in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where its largest hub is located.
The problem was a network hardware issue on a platform that uses DXC technology, a provider that manages the flight operations system that allows flights to leave the gate, American said in a statement.
The system is tied to critical data such as an aircraft's weight and balance, which is required before a flight can leave the gate.
“This issue has been resolved and flights have resumed,” the airline said in a statement. “We sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience this morning.”
The Federal Aviation Administration said American had requested the grounding.
Airlines regularly request ground stops that hold flights at the point of departure so that during disruptions, destination airports are not overloaded with flights for which there is no parking space. In addition to technical problems, ground stops are put in place during thunderstorms and other severe weather events.
American had a smaller schedule on Christmas Eve than other days around the Christmas holiday. The airline has not announced any cancellations related to the issue, a spokeswoman said.
Airlines' patchwork systems of critical technology platforms have recently taken off following periods of mass flight cancellations such as: B. gained more attention southwestThe collapse during the holiday season at the end of 2022 and deltaThe struggle to recover from it CrowdStrike Failure last summer.
Correction: The ground stop was issued on Tuesday. The timing was incorrect in an earlier version.
Comments are closed.