Technical issue briefly grounds American Airlines flights across US
- Reference: 1735057607
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/12/24/american_airlines_grounds/
- Source link:
American Airlines tells The Register that the technology issue impacted systems necessary for flight releases. In response, the FAA [1]reports that the airline requested a nationwide stop order, which began around 1150 UTC and lasted about an hour.
In a statement, the US' largest airline blamed a "vendor technology" issue for the disruption, but didn't name and shame any specific provider.
[2]
"That issue has been resolved and flights have resumed. We sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience this morning. It's all hands on deck as our team is working diligently to get customers where they need to go as quickly as possible," an American Airlines spokesperson told The Register in an email.
[3]
[4]
American Airlines didn't address El Reg's questions as to whether resolving the issue could result in additional delays or disruptions over the holiday season.
The airline is encouraging customers to use their mobile app or visit their website for information on how the outage may have affected their flights and connections.
[5]
The incident comes amid one of the busiest travel seasons of the year, with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) [6]expecting to screen nearly 40 million passengers over the peak Christmas and New Year's travel period.
[7]Delta officially launches lawyers at $500M CrowdStrike problem
[8]SpaceX faces $663K FAA fine for Musk's alleged launch impatience
[9]NASA's X-59 plane is aiming for a sonic thump, not a boom
[10]Airbus A380 flew for 300 hours with metre-long tool left inside engine
As technology relayed travel disruptions go, an hour-long grounding is far from the worst. Over the past few years, we've seen numerous situations in which IT failures have left millions stranded. Two years ago, an IT meltdown at Southwest Airlines left roughly 2 million travelers [11]stranded as crews were forced to schedule flights manually in what was later described as an "extraordinarily difficult" and "tedious, long process."
More recently, the now infamous Crowdstrike outage [12]brought much of the IT world to a standstill. It is estimated the flawed update to the Falcon thread-detection system crashed and disabled more than 8 million Microsoft Windows machines around the world. Among them were more than 37,000 systems [13]operated by Delta Airlines. The incident resulted in travel delays for more than 1.3 million people, the airline later revealed. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.fly.faa.gov/adv/adv_otherdis.jsp?advn=17&adv_date=12242024&facId=DCC/DCC&title=AAL+MAIN+AND+SUBS+GROUND+STOP&titleDate=12/24/24
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z26eWXKFsntpXb-3spysCwAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z26eWXKFsntpXb-3spysCwAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z26eWXKFsntpXb-3spysCwAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z26eWXKFsntpXb-3spysCwAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/december-holiday-fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-efforts-ensure-air-travel
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/28/delta_airlines_crowdstrike_lawsuit/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/17/faa_spacex_fine_proposed/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/30/nasa_x59_aircraft/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/15/tool_found_in_a380_engine/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/28/southwest_outdated_it/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/19/crowdstrike_falcon_sensor_bsod_incident/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/28/delta_airlines_crowdstrike_lawsuit/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Driving home for Christmas
LOL. Just watched that one last night!
Re: Driving home for Christmas
Except before long those will (or already are) all be at risk of disruption due to software.
Look at Network Rail's issues on the 6th December.
We have had software faults on so called "Smart Motorways" and most modern cars are just a computer on wheels.
Vendor Problem
Could it have been cloud-y weather related?
Re: Vendor Problem
Wrong type of cloud
If you have to blame vendors then you've failed at least twice.
Well, if the "vendor technology" involved certain Oracle products going SNAFU then blame might be justified in this instance.
Crowdstruck again, eh?
Seasonal gremlins
Good use for the AA App?
A system wide meltdown like this would seem to merit a notice on the AA app but no. I kept checking this morning and nary a whisper about how none of their flights were actually taking off. You could check individual flight status and see that they were delayed, but you really had to be in the airport with the monitors there to know that it wasn't just that your individual flight that was delayed.
Re: Good use for the AA App?
Someone there is probably desperate to say what really happened. They'll have been told to keep quiet. However, when you insult your engineers, doesn't want to make them keep quiet. Remember that when info is leaked, it most always is because you're treating your staff like shit.
Santa Express Parcels
At the time of writing, Santa is up in the air and delivering presents.
LAST SEEN
Montevideo, Uruguay
[1]https://www.noradsanta.org/en/map
No reports of any issues, vendor or otherwise.
[1] https://www.noradsanta.org/en/map
Proprietary software does it again.
Enough written.
Presumably someone somewhere packed up early and flicked the wrong "lightswitch" as they left the building for the year.....!
"American Airlines didn't address El Reg's questions as to whether resolving the issue could result in additional delays or disruptions over the holiday season."
Perhaps they ignored your question because they thought it was a bit dimwitted. Why would any 21st century American not know damn well that a system wide outage on Christmas Eve of a major airline for more than a few minutes is going to cause delays and disruptions over the holiday season?
Excuse Database
"Vendor Technology": a pitiful, vague excuse attempting to push the blame onto unspecified other parties. It's found in the Excuse Database between "Exturcolate Sunspots" and "Hydrosonic Defoliation."
Driving home for Christmas
No planes, just trains and automobiles