American Airlines grounded on Christmas Eve by technical glitch
American Airlines faced a major disruption on Christmas Eve, one of the busiest travel days, due to a technical issue that grounded all its flights across the U.S, reports a Kazinform News Agency correspondent. The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that the airline requested a nationwide ground stop, which was lifted around 8 a.m. ET once the issue was resolved. Flights have since resumed.
The problem was caused by a system-wide technical error affecting weight and balance calculations essential for flight operations. American Airlines, scheduled to run over 3,300 domestic flights that day, apologized for the inconvenience in a public statement.
Passengers nationwide expressed frustration over the lack of updates during the outage. One traveler told CNN, “It’s Christmas Eve, so complaining doesn’t seem quite right.” Social media posts also highlighted the chaos, with one user on X (formerly Twitter) reporting the widespread software issue delaying departures.
A video from Fort Lauderdale airport showed an agent announcing, “Our system is down,” while passengers waited at the gate. The outage caused American Airlines’ stock to drop nearly 3% in premarket trading but rebounded 1% after the issue was resolved.
The airline apologized for the disruption and thanked customers for their patience, working quickly to minimize delays during the holiday travel rush.
Earlier, it was reported that Japan Airlines’ system network experienced a cyberattack on Thursday, causing delays of up to an hour for at least 14 domestic flights, with some international flights also affected.