Every American Airlines flight in the US was grounded due to a “technical issue,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday. The mass cancellation, which lasted several hours and has since been rescinded, struck during the busiest travel period of the year and initially affected millions of people.
In a notice on its website, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said that American Airlines – the country’s largest carrier – had requested a ground stop for all of its flights on Tuesday morning.
The company confirmed shortly afterwards that it was “experiencing a technical issue with all American Airlines flights.”
Responding to a post from a customer on X, American Airlines said that it could not provide a timeframe for flights to resume, only that technicians were “trying to fix it in the shortest possible time.”
Video footage shared on X showed passengers being told to wait at crowded gate areas. In one video, an American Airlines employee announced that “our system is down.”
The Christmas and New Year period is a busy one for air travel. According to trade group Airlines for America, roughly 54 million US passengers are expected to take to the sky between December 19 and January 6, a 6% increase over last year.