American Airlines planes sit at their gates at Miami International Airport on October 25, 2024 in Miami, Florida.
Joe Rydell | Getty Images
American Airlines It halted flights to the United States on Tuesday morning due to a technical issue, disrupting travel during what airlines expect to be a period of record holiday demand.
By 7:55 a.m. ET, the ground stop had been lifted, an American Airlines spokeswoman told CNBC. The ground stop lasted less than an hour.
American said the problem was due to a platform provided by a vendor. The system is linked to important data such as the aircraft's weight and balance, which is required before the flight can leave the gate.
“This issue has been resolved and flights have resumed,” the company said in a statement. “We sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience caused this morning.”
The Federal Aviation Administration said American requested a ground stop.
Airlines routinely require ground stops, which hold flights at the point of departure, so that destination airports are not overwhelmed with flights with nowhere to park when disruptions occur. In addition to the technical issues, ground stops were put in place in anticipation of thunderstorms and other severe weather.
American was running a smaller schedule on Christmas Eve compared to the other days surrounding the Christmas holiday. A company spokeswoman said it had no cancellations related to the case.
Airlines' patchwork systems for critical technology platforms have gained more attention recently following periods of mass flight cancellations such as SouthwestCollapse during the 2022 year-end holiday season and DeltaStruggle to recover from Crowd Strike Outage last summer.
Correction: The ground stop was issued Tuesday. An earlier version had the timing wrong.
