American Airlines briefly grounded U.S. flights due to technical glitch

American Airlines briefly grounded its U.S. flights Tuesday morning as a consequence of a technical downside, snarling journey throughout what carriers count on to be a interval of report demand for the vacations.

By 7:55 a.m. ET, the bottom cease had been lifted, an American Airlines spokeswoman informed CNBC. The floor cease lasted for lower than an hour.

The downside was a community {hardware} situation involving a platform utilizing DXC Technology, a vendor that maintains the flight working system that lets flights go away the gate, American mentioned in a press release.

The system is tied to crucial information like an plane’s weight and steadiness, which is required earlier than a flight can go away the gate.

“That situation has been resolved and flights have resumed,” the provider mentioned in a press release. “We sincerely apologize to our clients for the inconvenience this morning.”

The Federal Aviation Administration mentioned American had requested the bottom cease.

Airlines routinely request floor stops, which maintain flights at origin, in order that vacation spot airports aren’t overwhelmed by flights with nowhere to park when there are disruptions. In addition to technical issues, floor stops are put in place for thunderstorms and different extreme climate.

American was working a smaller schedule on Christmas Eve in contrast with different days across the Christmas vacation. The provider did not have any cancellations tied to the difficulty, a spokeswoman mentioned.

Airlines’ patchwork techniques of crucial expertise platforms have gained extra consideration these days after intervals of mass flight cancellations comparable to Southwest‘s meltdown in the course of the 2022 year-end vacation season and Delta‘s wrestle to get well from the CrowdStrike outage this previous summer time.

Correction: The floor cease was issued Tuesday. An earlier model misstated the timing.