American Airlines Briefly Grounds Flights Due to Technical Issue, Delays Thousands
American Airlines’ U.S. flights were briefly grounded Tuesday morning due to a technical problem, causing delays for thousands of passengers. The ground stop, which lasted less than an hour, was lifted by 7:55 a.m. ET, but more than 900 mainline flights were delayed, representing 38% of the airline’s schedule for the day. Another 200 flights operated by regional carrier Envoy were also delayed.
The issue was a network hardware problem involving a platform used to maintain the flight operating system, which is handled by vendor DXC Technology. The system is critical because it provides critical data, such as an aircraft’s weight and balance, before a flight can depart from the gate.
The ground stop was requested by American Airlines and is a common procedure used to manage disruptions and prevent destination airports from becoming overwhelmed with flights. The airline’s main hub, Dallas-Fort Worth, was also affected by thunderstorms, adding to the delays. Despite over 11,000 flights departing on Tuesday, American Airlines did not cancel any flights due to the issue.
This incident highlights the fragility of the airline industry’s patchwork system of critical technology platforms, which have faced scrutiny in recent years due to high-profile meltdowns, such as Southwest Airlines’ holiday season disruptions in 2022 and Delta Air Lines’ struggles to recover from the CrowdStrike outage this summer.