Technical issues with a third-party vendor brought hundreds of flights to a halt across the nation Monday morning.
Greg Martin, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman, tells WTOP the system is back online.
The FAA said there was a technical issue with the system called AeroData, which determines whether flights can take off.
The airlines impacted included Southwest, Delta, American, JetBlue, Alaska and United airlines.
The airlines said the the system-wide outages caused delays locally and across the country.
There has been no estimate for when things will return to normal.
Locally, flights out of BWI were affected. Delays were reported in Chicago, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Miami and Detroit.
Southwest Airlines told WTOP it implemented an internal ground stop for 40 minutes “during an outage with a vendor that services multiple carriers with data used in flight planning.”
Southwest lifted the ground stop at 7:05 a.m. but some flights are still delayed.
Airlines say travelers should check their websites for the latest updates on flights.
Travelers at BWI told WTOP their delayed flights weren’t a big deal. One flyer who only provided her first name, Nancy, said she brought books to pass the time.
“It doesn’t bother me. I fly a lot and I’ve flown lots of long-haul distances,” she said while waiting for a delayed flight to Ohio.
Mary Erickson, a traveler whose business trip flight was delayed, heard about the delays on WTOP-FM while driving to the airport.
“It’s just a business trip so I’m mentally thinking, ‘OK, what meetings do I have to rearrange?'” Erickson said.
“I’m mentally thinking, ok what meetings do I have to rearrange?” Southwest passenger plans for delays after system-wide outage. Several airlines impacted. Problem has been fixed, but check out the flight board! @WTOP pic.twitter.com/CEpXHPMMoe
— Melissa Howell (@Mhowell003) April 1, 2019
The Associated Press and WTOP’s Melissa Howell and Teddy Gelman contributed to this report.
