American Airlines has resumed flights after temporarily halting service for about an hour on Tuesday due to a technical issue affecting the systems needed to release its planes.
The nationwide pause was lifted just before 13:00 GMT, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The disruption occurred on one of the busiest travel days of the year, as passengers were making their way for Christmas Eve journeys.
In a statement, the airline explained that a “vendor technology issue” caused the problem, and that it had mobilized all available resources to minimize further disruptions.
“We sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience this morning,” the airline stated.
“It’s all hands on deck as our team works tirelessly to get customers to their destinations as quickly as possible.”
While flights continue to experience delays as the airline recovers from the nationwide disruption, real-time tracking site Flightradar24 shows planes are taking off again from major U.S. travel hubs.
Passengers shared on social media that they were stuck on the tarmac or at gates during the hour-long outage, which caused widespread flight disruptions.
In a video posted on X by a CBS reporter in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a gate agent announced that a flight to Philadelphia would soon begin boarding.
“The system is slowly coming back,” the agent said from the gate.
In July, American Airlines, along with other major carriers, grounded flights nationwide due to communication issues stemming from a global IT crash. This failure, which also affected banks and emergency services, was caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike.