Thousands of passengers have been left stranded after a system-wide outage caused at least three US airlines to ground all flights.
Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines said the “system-wide outage” was affecting all flights across the country, while American Airlines and JetBlue were also affected, with passengers left at gates or forced to wait in stationary planes on the tarmac, according to multiple media reports.
Airlines were hit by problems with the Aerodata planning software, which calculates weight and balance on planes, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, The Sun reported.
Southwestern Airlines told a passenger who tweeted about delays in Nashville: “We’re working through some tech-related issues and will have you on your way as quickly as possible.
“It’s affecting our flights system wide, and we’re working to see if it’s affecting any other carriers this morning as well.”
Is it just @flynashville ?
— God bless the BEARCATS (@ucsigmachi) April 1, 2019
Passengers said there was also chaos at Atlanta and Boston airports among many others, while Canada’s Alaska Air Group also said it was experiencing a system-wide outage.
In a statement to Travel Weekly, Delta said: “A brief third-party technology issue that prevented some Delta Connection flights from being dispatched on time this morning has been resolved.
“No cancellations are expected due to the issue and our teams are working to resolve some resulting delays. We apologise to customers for any inconvenience.”
A United Airlines spokesperson told Travel Weekly that the issue delayed about 150 of its United Express flights.
“Some of our regional carriers experienced an issue with a flight planning program this morning that impacted operations, resulting in delays for select United Express flights,” the spokesperson said.
“Our team worked quickly with our partners to resolve the issue. Some flights that were affected have departed, and we’re working to get all affected flights back on schedule.”
Travel Weekly has contacted Southwest Airlines for comment.
