American Airlines grounded flights nationwide on one of the busiest flying days of the year following unspecified technical problems.
In an advisory notice the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said all American Airlines flights were grounded at the company's request.
In a statement, American Airlines said: "A technical issue is affecting American flights this morning.
"Our teams are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, and we apologize to our customers for the inconvenience."
Bloomberg reported the issue may be a software outage preventing American Airlines from calculating the balance and weight requirements for its aircraft.
Christmas Eve is one of the busiest days of the year for American aviation, with the FAA reporting 41,028 commercial flights took place on the day in 2023.
CBS Miami reporter Anna McAllister shared a video from Ford Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in which American Airlines customers are told "we're going to keep everyone in the gate area, we're going to give you updates every 15 minutes to let you know what's going on. Right now our system is down, we cannot show the crew or board any customers."
At 7:38 a.m. ET McAllister reported that flights were resuming.
"Good news! American Airlines systems are back up!" she wrote.
In an accompanying video an American Airlines employee can be heard saying: "The system is slowly coming back up, we're going to start boarding Philadelphia."
Impacted customers took to social media to voice their frustrations and ask for further information.
Mary Scott Hunter, from Alabama, wrote: "Back to the gate and now deplaning at BNA [Nashville International Airport]. Cyber attack is my guess. Heck of way to start Christmas. Hey, AmericanAir just tell us whether we should go home or not. Please don't make us wait in the airport for hours."#
The airline replied: "Our team is working to get this rectified so that you can be safely on your way to your family. Your continued patience is appreciated."
Newsweek contacted American Airlines for further comment via email on Tuesday outside of regular office hours.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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