American: Computer system behind cancellations 'stabilised'

American Airlines says it has "stabilised" a computer system that failed at one of its affiliate carriers, causing the cancellation of 2,500 flights over the past week. The failure occurred in computers used to schedule crews for PSA Airlines, which is owned by American and operates many American Eagle regional flights. "It's a hardware issue that was causing some of our applications to run really slowly," an American Airlines spokeswoman said Tuesday. She said employees tried to work around the problem, "but the application was running so slow they just couldn't keep up." FlightStats said PSA canceled more than 500 flights by Tuesday afternoon. All of the airline's morning flights were scrubbed and PSA restarted after the computer system was stabilised. Some cancellations were set for Wednesday as the airline repositioned planes and crews — FlightStats showed about a dozen. Many of the cancellations and longest lines since the outages began last Thursday have been at the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, a major hub for American. The incident highlights the role that so-called regional airlines like PSA play in the operations of the giant carriers: American, Delta and United.<br/>