American Airlines has restored all of its flights after a brief grounding

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered the grounding of the entire American Airlines fleet USA at 7 a.m. Eastern time (1 p.m. Polish time). The air traffic regulator said in a statement that American Airlines had requested this decision, but the institution did not provide detailed information on this matter.

A spokesman for the airline only said that “a technical failure affected American Airlines flights this morning.” He added that technicians are working to solve the problem as quickly as possible and apologized to all passengers for the inconvenience.

AP reported shortly later that after about an hour of grounding, all machines were allowed to fly. However, the American carrier did not specify what exact fault caused the suspension of flights.

The grounding of American Airlines planes could impact flights on other airlines and millions of travelers during the holiday season, the agency noted.

The carrier's shares fell by 3.8% before the session began.

Many passengers posted on social media that their flights were stuck on the runway at various airports. “No estimated time frame has been provided, but they are trying to solve the problem as soon as possible,” the company wrote in a post on the X website, responding to a question from the grounded passenger.

“Hey American Airlines, just tell us if we should go home or not. Don't make us wait for hours at the airport,” one user wrote.

The airlines responded to various comments posted on Bluesky, X and Facebook.

According to Reuters, the carrier operates thousands of flights daily to over 350 destinations in over 60 countries.

The agency recalls a similar situation from two years ago. Southwest Airlines experienced system failures over the holidays, leading to the cancellation of 16,900 flights and the stranding of two million passengers. Ultimately, they were fined $140 million, the largest civil penalty ever for travel disruption.