Busy day starts with brief disruption of all American Airlines flights

WASHINGTON, D.C.: American Airlines faced a major disruption December 24 as all flights nationwide were briefly grounded due to a technical problem, just as the holiday travel season intensified.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a ground stop at the airline's request following an outage in its flight operating system (FOS), which manages operations such as dispatch, flight planning, and passenger boarding. The airline attributed the issue to a vendor-related technology problem.

Flights were allowed to resume about an hour later, but the disruption caused delays across American's major hubs. According to aviation analytics company Cirium, only 36 percent of the airline's 3,901 flights departed on time, and 51 were canceled.

Dennis Tajer, spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association, said pilots were notified of the outage early Tuesday morning. "Some components of FOS have experienced issues in the past, but a systemwide outage is rare," Tajer said.

Customers expressed frustration on social media over missed connections and limited assistance from the airline. Bobby Tighe, a Florida real estate agent, missed a family Christmas Eve gathering in New York after repeated delays led him to reroute through Newark. "I'll pick up my rental car and restart everything tomorrow," Tighe said.

Cirium reported that most delayed flights departed within two hours of their scheduled time, and 39% arrived on schedule. The highest number of delays occurred at Dallas-Fort Worth, Kennedy Airport in New York, and Charlotte, North Carolina.

FlightAware, a flight-tracking service, reported 4,058 delays and 76 cancellations for U.S. flights on December 24, with 961 delays involving American Airlines by the afternoon.

The outage occurred during widespread winter weather, including rain and snow in the Pacific Northwest, freezing rain in the Mid-Atlantic, and snowfall in New York.

This disruption reminds us how minor issues can cascade into larger problems during peak travel periods. Airlines, including American, Delta, and United, have measures like interline agreements to mitigate disruptions, but full flights during the holidays make rebooking passengers particularly challenging.

The first holiday season under a new Transportation Department rule requiring automatic refunds for canceled or significantly delayed flights provided some relief for passengers. However, rebooking remains the preferred option during busy travel periods.

Despite the setbacks, an American Airlines spokesperson noted that it was not a peak travel day, with approximately 2,000 fewer flights than the busiest days, providing some buffer to manage delays.

The Transportation Security Administration expects to screen 40 million passengers through January 2, while AAA reports that 90 percent of holiday travelers will drive to their destinations.