WASHINGTON — American Airlines was forced to temporarily halt departures across the United States on Tuesday evening after an information technology failure disrupted its flight operations. Although the problem was resolved in less than an hour, the outage quickly spread across the carrier’s network, delaying or canceling hundreds of flights.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, a nationwide ground stop for American Airlines aircraft was issued at approximately 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time. The restriction remained in place until 7:18 p.m., when the airline was cleared to gradually resume departures.
American Airlines said the disruption was caused by a malfunction affecting one of its internal IT systems. While technicians worked to restore the system, aircraft were unable to depart, effectively bringing much of the airline’s nationwide operation to a standstill.
“Our systems are recovering, and flights are resuming,” American Airlines said in a statement. “We temporarily paused departures while our teams worked to resolve the issue. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”
Flight-tracking service FlightAware reported that American Airlines delayed more than 1,100 flights, representing approximately 30% of its scheduled operations on Tuesday. Another 221 flights, or about 6% of the airline’s schedule, were canceled.
Data from Flightradar24 also showed that, as of 7 p.m. Eastern Time, approximately 130 fewer American Airlines aircraft were in the air compared with the same time one week earlier.
The disruption was compounded by severe weather. Several major airports along the East Coast were already experiencing significant delays and temporary ground stops because of thunderstorms. The combination of the IT failure and weather-related restrictions placed additional pressure on the national air traffic system and extended waiting times for thousands of passengers.
Although American Airlines restored its operations relatively quickly, the incident once again demonstrated how dependent modern aviation has become on digital infrastructure. Even a brief failure of a critical information system can disrupt the schedule of a major airline within minutes, triggering a chain reaction of delays across domestic and international routes.
