Computer outage grounds multiple US airlines

Monday, April 1, 2019

A number of airlines, including Southwest, American and Delta, had to temporarily ground their planes early Monday morning due to a computer snag in a central system. As a result, travellers can expect lingering flight delays as airlines play catch-up.

The Federal Aviation Administration informed that several airlines experienced issues with AeroData, a program that provides weight-and-balance information that is necessary to grant clearance for takeoff. The FAA said severity varied from airline to airline.
Southwest Airlines said the outage grounded flights for about 40 minutes.

Airline spokesman Dan Landson said that scattered flight delays are anticipated and customers should check Southwest.com for the latest updates on specific flights.

“We’re working with customers on any impacts to their travel plans and we appreciate their understanding as we place nothing higher than the safe operation of every flight,” he said in a statement.

By 8:15 a.m. EDT, American Airlines announced via Twitter that the issue, which had affected its regional flights, had been resolved.

“Earlier this morning, AeroData had a technical issue that impacted a few of our regional carriers,” American spokesman Ross Feinstein said in a statement.”This technical issue has been resolved. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.

Delta spokeswoman Savannah Huddleston said that airline was also up and running after the AeroData outage, which had prevented its regional Delta Connection flights from taking off.
“A brief third-party technology issue that prevented some Delta Connection flights from being dispatched on time this morning has been resolved,” she said in a statement.

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