American Airlines flights resume after brief outage

Robert Alexander | Getty Images

An American Airlines Boeing 737 passenger plane taxis from a gate to the runway at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C.

A system-wide computer outage at American Airlines resulted in a brief nationwide halt on Sunday for the company’s flights.

The company’s main operating system failed for roughly 30 minutes before normal services resumed, according to a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration on Twitter.

“@
AmericanAir main operating system and dispatch went down around 2:05 p.m. ET this afternoon. Working with the #
FAA, a national ground stop was implemented for their flights. It has since been restored around 2:45 p.m. ET. Please check with your airline about your flight status.”

Company spokesperson Michelle Mohr confirmed the outage to CNBC, adding that a brief connectivity issue was responsible for the widespread outage.

After some irate travelers vented on social media, Mohr stressed that the issue didn’t result in any cancellations, and caused only nine delays across the entire system.

American’s outage ranged across U.S. cities, with customers complaining of delays from Chicago to Minneapolis.