An IT outage Tuesday evening prompted the brief grounding of all flights operated by American Airlines nationwide.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide ground stop for all flights operated by American Airlines flights and its subsidiaries just before 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time, the airline said. The order was lifted at 7:18 p.m. for all airports except Charlotte Douglas International.
“A technology issue briefly impacted connectivity for some of our systems on Tuesday evening,” the Fort Worth-based airline said in a social media post. “We put a temporary ground stop in place while our teams worked to resolve the issue. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”
Earlier this year, the FAA took the rare step of halting all
aircraft operations to and from El Paso and nearby Santa Teresa, New Mexico, for "special security reasons" before lifting the restriction early the next morning. The roughly seven-hour closure affected all cargo, commercial and general aviation flights.
Last month, the agency ordered a ground delay at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport due to air traffic controller staffing limitations, prompting nearly 300 delayed flights.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: American Airlines briefly grounds all flights after tech issue
