American Airlines was forced to temporarily ground all its flights across the United States due to a technical issue, causing significant disruptions during the busy Christmas travel period.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a nationwide ground stop for the airline, which was lifted after approximately one hour.

The issue was linked to a “vendor technology issue”, the airline said. The carrier issued a statement saying: “We have resolved a vendor technology issue that briefly affected flights this morning. We sincerely apologise to our customers for the inconvenience and have issued a travel alert to allow for additional flexibility.”

Despite the swift resolution, the incident led to delays and cancellations, compounding challenges for travellers in the day before Christmas.

Passengers are advised to check their flight statuses and consider rebooking options provided by the airline. This event underscores the vulnerability of airline operations to technological issues, especially during peak travel times.

It follows a major tech outage for Delta Air Lines in July that caused global disruption and led the US carrier to cancel around 7,000 flights linked to a CrowdStrike IT issue.