American Airlines resumes Christmas Eve flights after technical issue
USEPAAmerican Airlines resumed flights on Tuesday after suspending service for about an hour due to a technical issue affecting systems needed to clear planes.
The nationwide grounding was lifted by 13:00 GMT, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The disruption comes on one of the busiest travel days of the year as passengers travel on Christmas Eve.
The airline said in a statement that a “supplier technical issue” had caused the issue and that it was working “everything possible” to minimize further disruption.
“We deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused to our passengers this morning,” the airline said.
“Our teams are working hard and pulling out all the stops to get customers where they need to be as quickly as possible.”
Departure boards at major US airports still show some flights delayed for up to two hours as airlines recover from nationwide problems, but live tracking website Flightradar24 shows planes are taking off again at many major US travel hubs and most flights are taking off again Departing on time.
Passengers reported on social media that they were stranded on the tarmac or at gates as flights were affected by the roughly hour-long shutdown.
Some passengers were also told to get off the plane.
In a video posted on X by a CBS reporter in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a gate agent announced that boarding for a flight to Philadelphia was about to begin.
“The system is slowly recovering,” the agent announced from the door.
In July, major carriers such as American Airlines Flights grounded across U.S. Communication issues due to global IT collapse.
The outage was caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, and banks and emergency services were also affected.
