By Tiffany Williams –
American Airlines temporarily halted departures across the United States Tuesday evening after the company experienced what it described as a “systemwide IT outage” that disrupted key technology systems and affected flight operations nationwide.
According to an alert issued through the Federal Aviation Administration’s Operational Information System, flights that had not yet departed were held at airport gates across the country while the airline worked to address the outage impacting its technological infrastructure.
By 6:20 p.m. CT, the FAA updated the advisory to indicate the nationwide ground stop had been lifted at most U.S. airports.
The agency said flights continued to be held in Charlotte while operations there remained affected.
American Airlines said the disruption stemmed from a technology issue that interrupted connectivity for some of its systems.
“A technology issue briefly impacted connectivity for some of our systems on Tuesday evening. Systems are coming back online now and flights are departing again,” an American Airlines spokesperson said. “We put a temporary ground stop in place while our teams worked to resolve the issue. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”
As customers sought updates throughout the evening, the airline responded on social media, telling travelers it was dealing with a “systemwide IT outage.”
The disruption extended beyond flight operations.
American Airlines said customers were unable to use the airline’s mobile applications to book or change flights during the outage.
The airline also said it was unable to answer calls to its customer service phone lines while the technology issues persisted.
It was not immediately clear how many flights were affected nationwide or how long it would take for all systems and customer services to be fully restored.
The airline said systems were coming back online and that flights had resumed departing as crews worked to return operations to normal.