Chaos at Christmas

American Airlines has to stop all flights in the USA

American Airlines experienced massive technical problems at Christmas of all times. All flights were affected by an approximately hour-long outage and had to remain on the ground for the time being. The airline has the largest fleet of aircraft in the world.

As the company and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced on their websites, all of the airline's flights nationwide had to be temporarily suspended.

It was not until an hour later that the FAA announced that the measure had been lifted. Nevertheless, the company's shares fell by 3.8 percent in pre-market trading.

Gigantic aircraft fleet affected
The airline operates the largest fleet of aircraft in the world and transports over half a million passengers every day. During the Christmas period, this figure rises to around 6,500 flights per day due to increased travel activity.

The current disruption therefore affected countless travelers in the middle of an already busy travel period.

The reasons behind the technical problem are not yet known. 

Massive outage at the beginning of the year
There had already been a major problem in the industry at the beginning of the year. There was a worldwide technical outage in connection with Microsoft's Azure cloud platform and a software problem at the cyber security company CrowdStrike.

Two years ago, Southwest Airlines experienced a system glitch during the holidays that led to 16,900 flight cancellations and delayed travel for two million passengers.