Brief halt to flights in US had threatened the travel plans of millions of people during busy holiday period.
A groundstop of all American Airlines flights in the United States has been lifted, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said, after an unspecified “technical issue” briefly halted flights across the country.
Just before 7am Eastern time (12:00 GMT) on Tuesday, the FAA ordered all American Airlines flights grounded in the US at the airline’s request.
The groundstop, early on Christmas Eve, had threatened the travel plans of millions of people across the US during the busy holiday period.
American Airlines had said that “a technical issue” was affecting its flights.
“We’re currently experiencing a technical issue with all American Airlines flights. Your safety is our utmost priority, once this is rectified, we’ll have you safely on your way to your destination,” the company said in a post on X.
American operates thousands of flights per day to more than 350 destinations in more than 60 countries.
The grounding came months after airlines were hit by a global tech outage tied to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform and a software issue at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
Two years ago, Southwest Airlines experienced a meltdown with its systems during the holidays that led to 16,900 flight cancellations and stranded 2 million passengers.
It was eventually fined $140m in the largest-ever civil penalty for a travel disruption.
This year, the Transportation Security Administration expects to screen 40 million passengers over the holidays and through January 2.
This story originally appeared on Al-Jazeera.
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