American Air says holiday delays caused by vendor tech glitch

American Airlines Group Inc. said that a tech issue with DXC Technology Co., a third-party vendor that maintains the company’s flight-operating systems, caused a brief groundstop on all US flights on Christmas Eve. The carrier said Tuesday that a network hardware-related issue has been resolved and flights have resumed. American’s flight-operating system allows for air transport to be coordinated and dispatched, it said. The halt lasted for about an hour. “We sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience this morning,” American said in a statement. “It’s all hands on deck as our team is working diligently to get customers where they need to go as quickly as possible.” The airline didn’t say if it expected any further delays or other knock-on effects. American Airlines had 3,320 domestic flights and 581 international flights scheduled for the day, according to aviation data provider Cirium. Only 19 of its flights were canceled by the early afternoon, in line with the typical 1% cancellation rate across airlines, Cirium said. But there were delays: Only about 37% of American Airlines flights were leaving on time as of the early afternoon, Cirium said, noting that most airlines aim for 80% of flights departing and arriving within 15 minutes of the scheduled time. The data provider said that most of the delays at American were under two hours. For example, 72% of flights departing out of American’s Dallas hub left within an hour of the scheduled time.<br/>