Thousands of travelers trying to make it to their loved ones for the holidays were stuck at airports through much of Tuesday after American Airlines briefly grounded all its flights in the United States because of a technical issue and bad weather made those delays worse.
The worst of the troubles were centered at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, which is American Airlines’ largest hub and is one of the country’s busiest airports.
The travel problems began Tuesday morning when systems that are needed to release flights malfunctioned because of what American said in a statement was a vendor technology issue. Then came the weather: A system of storms that prompted a flood warning moved into the Dallas area and hundreds of flights were delayed even after the technical issue was resolved about an hour later.
By Tuesday night, only 15% of American Airlines flights at Dallas Fort Worth had departed on time, according to Cirium, an aviation data company. And earlier, the airline requested a ground stop for flights headed to the airport. That stop lasted for over four hours, until about 8:30 p.m.
The thunderstorms caused average departure delays of more than two hours at Dallas Fort Worth for most of the day but began to decrease to just over an hour Tuesday night, according to FlightAware, an aviation tracker. For many, the wait was much longer.
“The 7-hour — and counting — adventure of rescheduled and delayed flights has resulted in me spending more of Christmas Eve at the DFW Pizza Hut Bar than with my wife, waiting for me in Tucson,” said Desmond Zantua, 35, of Queens, New York, who had a layover in Dallas.
The customer service line, Zantua added, went on “forever.” Later, the pilot on his flight “timed out,” and then his flight to Tucson was canceled, stretching his travel to 18 hours — and counting.
It was not immediately clear Tuesday night when the airline and the airport expected to clear all delayed flights.
The ground stop caused by the technical delay lasted only for an hour, but it came on what was expected to be a record period for holiday travel. The FAA had said it expected more than 31,000 flights on Christmas Eve.
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