DALLAS — American Airlines briefly issued a nationwide ground stop on Tuesday evening after a critical IT outage impacted the carrier’s system connectivity, stalling departures across the country and leaving passengers stranded on the tarmac and at gates.
The disruption affected all flights that had not yet taken off, causing widespread delays across the airline’s major hubs, including Dallas/Fort Worth International, Charlotte Douglas, and Chicago O’Hare.
The carrier confirmed the issue shortly after resolving the glitch, stating that systems are now recovering and normal operations are resuming.
“A technology issue briefly impacted connectivity for some of our systems on Tuesday evening,” an American Airlines spokesperson said in a statement. “Systems are coming back online now and flights are departing again. We put a temporary ground stop in place while our teams worked to resolve the issue. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”
While the exact duration of the outage was brief, ground stops of this scale often trigger a ripple effect throughout the domestic aviation network. Air traffic control logs and flight tracking services showed dozens of aircraft held at origin airports as technicians worked to restore system communications.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) monitored the situation and confirmed the ground stop was requested directly by the airline while internal systems were offline.
Passengers reported sudden delays aboard aircraft that had already pushed back from gate areas, as well as lengthy lines at customer service counters in major terminals. With systems coming back online, American Airlines teams are actively working through the backlog to get aircraft moving and rebook travelers affected by missed connections.
Travelers scheduled to fly this evening are encouraged to check their flight status on the official American Airlines app or website for real-time updates on delays and rescheduled departures.
