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American Airlines briefly halted departures across the United States this evening after a systemwide IT outage disrupted critical operational systems and prompted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to issue a nationwide ground stop. The FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center temporarily prevented all American Airlines flights from departing while the airline worked to restore its systems. Flights already in the air continued to their destinations.
The outage affected airports across the airline’s network, including Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD), Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), New York LaGuardia Airport (LGA), Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), and many others.
Key systems were impacted and prevented everything from issuing boarding passes to checking baggage to flight plans being issued and more. Operations were essentially crippled while this IT issue was ongoing.
Approximately an hour after the disruption began, American Airlines announced that its systems were “coming back online.” This allowed flights to begin departing once again. The outage also caused many aircraft to miss available departure times, which created further issues in areas like the Northeast that were already struggling with bad weather.
Anthony’s Take: American Airlines has not yet disclosed what caused the outage. Operations have resumed, but passengers can expect residual delays throughout the evening and into tomorrow as aircraft, crews, and ground employees work to recover from the nationwide disruption.
(Featured Image Credit: American Airlines.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
