Written by Utkarsh Shetty, Abhijith Ganappavaram, and David Shepherdson
(Reuters) – American Airlines said on Tuesday that its flights had resumed after a technical glitch forced the airline to ground it for an hour, disrupting travel by thousands on Christmas Eve, one of the busiest periods of the year.
The airline said the issue that briefly affected the carrier's ability to get its planes into the air was related to network hardware and was caused by DXC Technology (NYSE:), the operating system vendor responsible for maintaining its flight operations.
While customers were still pressing for details on their delayed flights, the relatively short stop means Americans are likely to avoid a widespread collapse that could last for several days during the peak holiday travel season.
The airline had 3,901 flights scheduled worldwide on Tuesday, with 19 cancelled, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.
However, only 37% of flights departed on time so far during the day, while 36% arrived on time, according to Cirium.
“Not a good start to traveling on Christmas Eve as the current flight is grounded and the captain cannot provide an ETA on resolution due to a system outage and/or paperwork error at the national level. It will make communications or refunds more complicated,” said one user, tagging American. also”. Airlines (NASDAQ:) on X.
Tuesday's issue is the latest technical snag after carriers were hit by a global technical outage linked to Microsoft's (NASDAQ:) cloud platform Azure and a software issue at cybersecurity company CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:) earlier this year.
The outage cost Delta Air Lines (NYSE:) at least $500 million.
Two years ago, Southwest Airlines (NYSE:) saw its systems collapse over the holidays, canceling 16,900 flights and stranding 2 million passengers. Ultimately, it was fined $140 million, the largest civil penalty ever for travel disruption.
Airlines have updated their cybersecurity systems and operational software, but because there has been an exodus of talented workers during the pandemic, the glitches that have occurred over the past few years were not entirely unexpected, said Ken Quinn, a partner at law firm Clyde & Co.
American Airlines operates thousands of flights daily to more than 350 destinations in more than 60 countries.
In a statement on Tuesday, the US Federal Aviation Administration referred Reuters to the airline, confirming that the carrier had reported a technical problem.
The problem with American is the automated system's inability to calculate or provide the weight and balance data (passenger/baggage/cargo mass and overall center of gravity) required to legally dispatch each flight, said Robert Mann, a former airline executive who now works. He runs a consulting company.
He said the management system may not have been able to load and calculate engine power requirements and take-off performance.
One US flight hub, Dallas-Fort Worth, was also experiencing arrival and departure delays, which the airline attributed to adverse weather conditions.
The Transportation Security Administration expects to screen a record 40 million travelers during the holidays.
