American Airlines resumes flights after hours-long ground stop on Christmas Eve

The company had not said why it was stopping all flights. Numerous passengers were posting on social media that their flights had been stuck on the runway at various airports and were now being sent back to the gate.

“An estimated timeframe has not been provided, but they’re trying to fix it in the shortest possible time,” the company said in a post on X, responding to a question from a stranded flyer.

Shares of American Airlines dropped 3.8% in pre-market trading on Tuesday after the company requested a nationwide groundstop, according to a notice on the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) website. The notice did not specify the reason for the grounding.

By 7:30 a.m. ET, the airline had not issued an official statement on social media but was responding to individual comments on platforms like X, Bluesky, and Facebook. Frustrated passengers flooded social media with questions and complaints. One user wrote, “Hey, @AmericanAir just tell us whether we should go home or not. Please don’t make us wait in the airport for hours.”

American Airlines operates thousands of daily flights to more than 350 destinations across over 60 countries.

This disruption comes months after a global technical outage linked to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform and a software issue at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike affected airline operations worldwide.

The incident also draws comparisons to a 2021 holiday meltdown at Southwest Airlines, which resulted in 16,900 flight cancellations and left 2 million passengers stranded. Southwest was later fined $140 million, the largest civil penalty for a travel disruption.

(With inputs from Associated Press)