American Airlines ‘system outage’ grounds all flights sparking travel nightmare for thousands of passengers at Christmas
ALL American Airlines flights across the US have been grounded, sparking widespread travel chaos on Christmas Eve.
Passengers have slammed the carrier, demanding answers as their festive travel plans have seemingly been upended.
An American Airlines representative told The U.S. Sun that a technical issue is impacting all flights.
“Our teams are working to resolve the issues as quickly as possible, and we apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”
And bosses at the Federal Aviation Administration have since issued a ground stop for all American Airlines flights.
Some passengers have said they’ve been delayed for at least 90 minutes.
Travelers have urged the carrier to provide more details as they’ve been left sitting on the tarmac.
One passenger heading to Miami from St. Louis asked “What is going on?”.
“Your safety is our utmost priority, once this is rectified, we’ll have you safely on your way to your destination,” a representative said in response.
Travelers have begged for updates, but officials have only said they’re working to fix the problem.
“An estimated timeframe has not been provided, but they’re trying to fix it in the shortest possible time,” a representative said.
Frustrated travelers have said they are bored and have begged the airline to provide snacks in response.
Others have been left fearing for their connecting flights.
American Airlines statement
AMERICAN Airlines has issued a statement after a system outage caused flights to be grounded on Christmas Eve.
A spokesperson said: “A technical issue is affecting American flights this morning. Our teams are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, and we apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”
“Will flights get shifted to the right,” one traveler posted on X.
“It’s our honeymoon. This is a horrific inconvenience last minute.”
Passengers have reported delays catching connecting flights from Houston’s George Bush Airport, while systems at Charlotte Douglas International Airport are reportedly down.
Footage taken at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport in Florida showed passengers waiting by the gate as airport staffers informed them about the situation.
Airport workers told passengers they would get regular 15-minute updates and explained that no one could board planes due to the outage.
One passenger, heading to Miami from Texas, told the ABC affiliate WPLG-TV that the pilot told travelers their plane couldn’t take off.
“The pilot told us it’s the software that calculates the baggage weights for each flight, so no one can take off,” they said.
David Myers encountered chaos when he was trying to fly out to New Orleans from Salisbury, Maryland.
He slammed American Airlines for the lack of information, per CNN.
“It’s Christmas Eve, so complaining doesn’t seem quite right,” he said.
“And safety always comes first. But more information at the gate would be helpful.”
Another passenger at Boston Logan Airport revealed they’ve been told to de-plane their aircraft as a result.
In footage shared on X, travelers were told to collect their belongings and return to the boarding area.
Kevin Lighty, a meteorologist for the CBS affiliate WCIA-TV, was also told he had to deplane, he revealed in a Facebook post.
More than 2,000 outage reports have been logged on Downdetector, and over 80% of these cite delays.
The outage comes as millions of Americans will take to the skies over the holidays.
Transportation Security Administration officials have revealed they expect to screen around 40 million passengers right up to January 2.
American Airlines said it expects its busiest travel day to be December 27.
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