Reservation System Failed Nationwide Causing Flight Cancellations

American Airlines has grounded all of its flight after a nationwide glitch shut down its computerized reservation system. The ground delay was imposed on all of the carrier's flights until 1700 EDT as the airline works to resolve the issue.

When the system, called Sabre, went offline, American's flights could not leave their gates. The move left thousands of passengers stranded at airports across the country. Arriving flights are not affected, according to a report appearing in the New York Times.

Reuters reports that, according to FlightAware, about 100 American flights and 100 American Eagle flights were initially impacted. At about 1440 EDT on its official Twitter account, American said “We are now in a system-wide ground delay until 4:00 pm CT as we work to resolve this issue. We apologize for any inconvenience.” Other flights are expected to be delayed as the afternoon wears on.

On its website, American says that its network system is experiencing intermittent outages. "At this time, we are holding all flights on the ground until later this afternoon, when we will provide another update. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as we can, and we apologize to our customers for this inconvenience.
 
"If your travel plans are flexible, there will be no charge if you would like to change your reservation and we will provide full refunds if your travel plans are not flexible. However, we are unable to make changes to current travel plans until we have resolved this issue."

FMI: www.aa.com