The world’s largest airline operator, American Airlines, resumed operations in the United States on Christmas Eve after a brief pause due to an unspecified technical glitch. The Federal Aviation Administration has lifted the ground stop of American Airlines after halting operations.
The disruption, which lasted over an hour, affected thousands of passengers in the US during the Christmas period when air travel is at its peak.
“Our teams are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, and we apologize to our customers for the inconvenience,” the airline earlier said while responding to a passenger’s complaint on X.
Announcements were made at airports when passengers were ready to board the flights. A video from an airport in the US showed the airline informing passengers that “They will give an update every 15 minutes and let them know what is going on…Our system is down and we cannot put the crew on or board any customer…We are working on it.”
Announcement from American Airlines as we wait at @FLLFlyer @AmericanAir pic.twitter.com/zL4137ih4g
— Anna McAllister (@annamactv) December 24, 2024
The problem came on the morning of Christmas Eve, which is expected to set a travel record, according to the AAA. Several passengers posted on social media about the inconvenience faced, especially at the airport as flights were cancelled or grounded hours before the scheduled take off.
A note from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the company has requested for grounding of all flights.
The shares of the carrier were down 3.8% before the bell, Reuters reported. The airline has not made any formal statement on social media but responded to passenger complaints on X, Facebook and Bluesky.
This comes almost six months after the world faced a Microsoft outage, with airlines, banks, and businesses scrambling to resume operations.
The US grounded all planes briefly; flights in other nations were affected. It was one of the biggest IT crashes in recent history, affecting global communication and air traffic.