American Airlines Says Systems 'Fully Restored' But Warns Of Delays, Cancellations
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Hours after a glitch in its reservation system forced it to ground all planes systemwide, American Airlines said Tuesday afternoon it has been "fully restored."
The airlines, however, did warn that it expects "continued flight delays and cancellations throughout the remainder of the day" and outlined a number of alternate options being made available to customers.
"We will continue to provide more information throughout the day as we make progress in resolving this issue. We apologize to our customers and our people for this inconvenience," American Airlines said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
The alternate options include the following:
*If customers must travel today and are already at the airport, they can rebook on another airline by visiting an American Airlines agent or by going to the other airline's ticket counter with their electronic ticket number.
*If customers must travel today and are not yet at the airport, they can rebook through American Airlines reservations or through another carrier and American will honor the fare difference.
*If a customer chooses not to travel today, there will be no charge for reservation changes or a full refund will be provided.
American Airlines also added in its statement that "It is important to note we see no evidence that today's technical outage is related to the tragic events in Boston."
Some passengers were stuck on planes while others couldn't make reservations. Passengers used social media to flood the airline with complaints.
Flight tracking service FlightAware said the AA outage started at around 1 p.m.
An estimated 500 American Airlines and 400 regional flights have been cancelled or delayed since then, and delays will continue to cascade after the situation is resolved, FlightAware said.
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