The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a nationwide ground stop for all American Airlines flights across the United States beginning at approximately 6:29 p.m. Eastern Time on July 28, 2026, due to a systemwide IT connectivity outage impacting the carrier’s operations. According to an FAA advisory, the nationwide ground stop affected American Airlines and its regional affiliates.
American Airlines confirmed the outage briefly affected system connectivity and temporarily halted flight departures while IT teams worked to restore functionality. The FAA later scaled back the ground stop, lifting it for all airports except Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) in North Carolina,
a major American Airlines hub. American Airlines reported full system connectivity restoration and resumed flight departures nationwide, issuing a statement: “Connectivity has been fully restored. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience. We appreciate the efforts of our team to bring our systems back online so quickly and take care of our customers.”
Status at Charlotte Douglas International Airport
Despite the nationwide lifting of restrictions, CLT remained under a localized ground stop due to congestion and a significant backlog of American Airlines flights. Ground delays for arrivals at CLT increased from an average of 24 minutes to 49 minutes. Flights destined for CLT were held
at their origin airports to manage airport traffic. The FAA advisory indicated there was a 30% to 60% chance the localized ground stop at CLT would extend beyond the scheduled end time.
Repeated FAA Ground Stops From IT Issues
This incident was American Airlines’ third FAA-issued ground stop in two years triggered by IT issues. The airline apologized to customers for the disruption caused by the outage and highlighted the swift work of its teams to restore system connectivity.
