Fort Worth-based American Airlines was hit with a major computer glitch on Thursday, which grounded a number of its flights and delayed flights nationwide.
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Some 525 flights on American Airlines were delayed and five cancelled on Thursday, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.com.
American spokesman Casey Norton said the airline did not immediately know the cause of the outage, which began around 11 a.m. CDT and lasted almost two hours. The airline didn’t go into any more detail on what caused the malfunction, while the Federal Aviation Authority’s advisory only detailed it as “airline issues”. It ruled out an outside breach of its systems.
Among other moves, it is gradually switching US Airways flights to American over a 90-day period, and it will reduce flights to lighten the load on its network when it finishes merging the two reservations systems in mid-October. In July, a faulty computer router prevented the airline from checking in passengers, grounding its fleet.
It is not a unusual thing for airlines that just merged not a long time. In April, the airline received its single operating certificate from the FAA, meaning all flights now operate under the American call sign, which pilots use to communicate with air traffic controllers.
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But the final step is among the most critical in any airline merger. In a month, the company plans to complete combining the reservations systems of American and its US Airways subsidiary and retire the US Airways brand.
