American Airlines on Tuesday lifted an hour-long ground stop on all its flights within the United States due to an unspecified technical issue, according to a notice posted on the U.S. aviation regulator’s website.
American Airlines flights into and out of Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport experienced brief delays Tuesday morning, but it’s unclear whether that was related to this technical issue or something else. It is unknown whether there are any.
The ground stop came ahead of a busy Christmas holiday, threatening the holiday plans of thousands of people.
“We are experiencing a technical issue that is impacting U.S. flights this morning. Our team is working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and we apologize for the inconvenience.” the company said in a statement after the grounding.
American Airlines offers thousands of flights per day to more than 350 destinations in more than 60 countries.
Airline stock prices stalled and fell slightly before the bell.
The US Federal Aviation Administration referred to the airline to Reuters in a statement and reiterated that the airline had reported a technical issue.
American was responding to comments posted on X by many users, as well as Bluesky and Facebook.
“Hey @AmericanAir, please tell me if we should go home. Don’t make us wait for hours at the airport,” one user wrote.
The grounding comes months after the airline suffered a global technology outage related to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform and a software issue with cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
Two years ago, Southwest Airlines experienced a system meltdown over the holidays, canceling 16,900 flights and stranding 2 million passengers. He was ultimately fined $140 million, the largest civil penalty ever for travel interference.
