American Airlines briefly grounded flights nationwide Tuesday evening due to a technology outage, preventing departures until systems were restored.
"We put a temporary ground stop in place while our teams worked to resolve the issue. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience," the airline said in its statement, which was also posted on its website.
Passengers reported delays and limited communication on X. One user wrote in the comments section of the airline's post at 7:30 p.m. ET, "My flight out of BOS has been waiting since 3 pm to leave," while another said shortly afterwards, "Well hopefully you can get me off the tarmac at some point."
Hundreds of Airlines Sat Idle Across US
The technical disruption forced hundreds of American Airlines and regional-carrier flights to sit idle across the country, since aircraft were barred from departing until the malfunction was fixed. By evening, flight-tracking service FlightAware reported that American had delayed roughly 1,300 flights—nearly 40 percent of its Tuesday schedule—and canceled 319 flights, or 8 percent of the day's operations.A separate tracking service, Flightradar24, found that as of 7 p.m. Eastern Time, roughly 130 fewer American Airlines flights were airborne compared with the same time the previous week.
American confirmed the resolution in its statement, saying, "Systems are coming back online now and flights are departing again.”
The FAA has continued struggling to fill air traffic controller positions nationally. Staffing at the New York Area Terminal Radar Approach Control facility remains at just 57 percent of targeted levels, a gap officials say has required controllers at multiple facilities to work mandatory overtime and six-day weeks.
To manage the shortage, the FAA has extended flight limits at Newark through summer 2027 and at JFK and LaGuardia through late October 2028. The agency has also extended relief from minimum flight-usage requirements at JFK, LaGuardia, and Reagan Washington National Airport through late 2027, and it does not expect Newark's controller staffing to significantly improve before October 2027.