American Airlines, World's Largest, Grounds All US Flights On Christmas Eve

The world's largest airline operator, American Airlines, grounded all its flights in the United States on Christmas Eve due to an unspecified technical glitch, news agency Reuters reported. Air traffic, especially in the US is at its peak around Christmas and New Year.

"Our teams are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, and we apologize to our customers for the inconvenience," a statement from the airline said.

Announcements were made at airports when passengers were ready to board the flights. A video from an airport in the US showed the airline informing passengers that "They will give an update every 15 minutes and let them know what is going on...Our system is down and we cannot put the crew on or board any customer...We are working on it."

Announcement from American Airlines as we wait at @FLLFlyer @AmericanAir pic.twitter.com/zL4137ih4g — Anna McAllister (@annamactv) December 24, 2024

The problems come on the morning of Christmas Eve, which is expected to set a travel record, according to the AAA. Several passengers posted on social media about the inconvenience faced, especially at the airport as flights were cancelled or grounded hours before the scheduled take off.

A note from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the company has requested for grounding of all flights.

The shares of the carrier were down 3.8% before the bell, Reuters reported. The airline has not made any formal statement on social media but is responding to passenger complaints on X, Facebook and Bluesky.

This comes almost six months after the world faced a Microsoft outage, with airlines, banks, and businesses scrambling to resume operations.

The US grounded all planes briefly; flights in other nations were affected. It was one of the biggest IT crashes in recent history, affecting global communication and air traffic.