Technical problems ground American Airlines flights

“We’re sorry and will have you on your way soon”, American Airlines tweeted at 2.14pm Eastern time (2.14am Singapore time Friday).

In April, American Airlines delayed flights when an iPad application used by pilots to view airport maps malfunctioned.

American Airlines grounded flights at three of their busiest airports after a technical glitch Thursday afternoon.

The airline issued the ground stop Thursday morning after the extent of the computer problem was discovered.

American planes could not take off or land from 11:30 a.m. until 1:15 p.m.

The airline has been responding to perplexed customers on Twitter, citing “technical issues”.

Scott could not say how many flights are grounded or when they would resume. In a month, the corporate plans to finish combining the reservations techniques of American and its US Airways subsidiary and retiring the US Airways model.

Combining these systems is a difficult task, and has tripped up other companies before – United Airlines experienced a number of computer outages when it merged with Continental Airlines in 2010.

Problems with computer systems grounding flights are not uncommon. United suffered two outages this summer, including one in July that the airline blamed on a faulty router.