American Airlines resumes flights after nationwide grounding due to ‘technical issue’

American Airlines, the main carrier at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, stopped all of its U.S. flights for more than an hour early Tuesday morning, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. That flight restriction was lifted at around 8 a.m., but delays were mounting Tuesday as the effects started to ripple through the air travel system.

The FAA issued a ground stop for all American Airlines flights, including its subsidiaries, shortly before 7 a.m. Tuesday. The FAA said the airline had requested the rare nationwide ground stop. On social media platform X, the airline was telling customers that it was working to resolve a “technical issue” affecting all flights.

In a statement, the airline said software from a vendor had stopped working, causing the delay.

“A vendor technology issue briefly affected flights this morning. That issue has been resolved and flights have resumed. We sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience this morning. It’s all hands on deck as our team is working diligently to get customers where they need to go as quickly as possible,” the airline said.

American Airlines said the software in question was needed to release flights and allow them to depart.

CLT is American Airlines’ second-biggest hub, and a major point for connections. The airline operates about 700 flights each day from CLT, and the airport is expecting its busiest holiday travel season on record.

The air travel tracking website FlightAware showed flights to and from Charlotte were delayed by an hour on average Tuesday morning, with delays increasing. Around 200 flights were delayed. The airport said it expects “residual delays” to persist.

This is a developing story and will be updated.