Technical snag grounds American Airlines flights for an hour on busy Christmas Eve
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Amid record holiday travel, one of the Augusta airport’s two carriers blamed a “technical issue” for grounding all its flights for a time on Christmas Eve.
Santa, however, was unaffected, taking off from the North Pole around 6 a.m. Eastern time to begin his journey around the globe, according to the NORAD Santa Tracker.
Just before 7 a.m. Eastern time, the Federal Aviation istration ordered all American Airlines flights grounded in the U.S. at the airline’s request. American had reported a technical issue affecting its entire system with millions traveling for the holiday.
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The ground stop, according to the time stamps on the FAA’s orders, lasted exactly one hour.
It was long enough to throw a wrench into many fliers’ Christmas travel plans.
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American has not expanded on what technical issue grounded the flights and the airline did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The groundings couldn’t come at a worse time for the millions of travelers expected to fly over the next 10 days.
The Transportation Security istration expects to screen 40 million engers for the holiday travel period that ends Jan. 2.
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American and Delta are the two airlines that serve Augusta Regional Airport, with each carrier serving about 140,000 fliers a year there.
Augusta Regional’s arrival and departure listings for Tuesday showed an American flight from Augusta to Charlotte landed at 4:55 a.m., five minutes ahead of schedule. But a flight that was supposed to land at Charlotte at 7:05 was delayed.
An American arrival from Charlotte scheduled for 8:53 a.m. was listed as delayed, as well.
American arrivals and departures later in the day were listed as scheduled.
The outage was part of a rough start to Christmas Eve for the airline industry.
There were 1,447 delays for flights entering or leaving the U.S. early in the day, with 28 cancellations. Snow was falling early in New York and Dallas-Fort Worth International, which is American Airlines’ main hub, was getting hit with rain.
Dallas-Fort Worth had the most delays, followed by Charlotte, Washington, New York, Chicago and Miami.
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Because the holiday travel period lasts weeks, airports and airlines typically have smaller peak days than they do during the rush around Thanksgiving, but the grind of one hectic day followed by another takes a toll on flight crews. And any hiccups — a winter storm or a computer outage — can snowball into massive disruptions.
Many flights during the holidays are sold out, which makes cancellations even more disruptive than during slower periods. That is especially true for smaller budget airlines that have fewer flights and fewer options for rebooking engers. Only the largest airlines, including American, Delta and United, have “interline agreements” that let them put stranded customers on another carrier’s flights.
This will be the first holiday season since a Transportation Department rule took effect that requires airlines to give customers an automatic cash refund for a canceled or significantly delayed flight. Most air travelers were already eligible for refunds, but they often had to request them.
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