American Airlines systems restored, expect delays and cancellations

Update: Here’s the latest statement from American Airlines, as of 6 p.m. EST:

Our networking systems have been fully restored and we are working to return to normal operations.  Flights from our hubs and international flights having been re-started, and we will reposition aircraft and crew throughout the evening.

 

Despite the magnitude of today’s disruption, we are pleased to report that we expect our operation to run normally with only a small number of flight cancellations expected tomorrow. We will add additional flights, as needed, tomorrow to ensure our customers are able to continue their travels. Again, we sincerely apologize to our customers for this inconvenience and thank our team for their extraordinary efforts today.

American Airlines announced at 4:30 that its reservations systems had been fully restored. They announced the fix on Twitter:

Our systems have been fully restored, however we expect continued delays & cancellations. More details: http://t.co/euRMFjrEha

— American Airlines (@AmericanAir) April 16, 2013

The full text of the statement on Facebook:

UPDATE as of 3:30pm CDT: Our systems have been fully restored, however we expect continued flight delays and cancellations throughout the remainder of the day. We have made several options available to our customers:

If customers must travel today and are already at the airport, they can rebook on another airline by visiting an American Airlines agent or by going to the other airline’s ticket counter with their electronic ticket number.

If customers must travel today and are not yet at the airport, they can rebook through American Airlines reservations or through another carrier and American will honor the fare difference.

If a customer chooses not to travel today, there will be no charge for reservation changes or a full refund will be provided.

It is important to note we see no evidence that today’s technical outage is related to the tragic events in Boston.

We will continue to provide more information throughout the day as we make progress in resolving this issue. We apologize to our customers and our people for this inconvenience.