Airlines start to recover from flight-data disruption

A TECHNICAL ISSUE with flight-information systems disrupted flights nationwide Monday morning. / COURTESY R.I. AIRPORT CORP.
A TECHNICAL ISSUE with flight-information systems disrupted flights nationwide Monday morning. / COURTESY R.I. AIRPORT CORP.

NEW YORK -United States airlines started returning to full service early Monday after a disruption of data they needed for takeoff caused delays across the country.

The intermittent problem lasted about two hours, according to American Airlines Group Inc., which experienced delays at some of its regional affiliates. Delta Air Lines Inc., Southwest Airlines Co. and United Continental Holdings Inc. also were affected. The Federal Aviation Administration said the outage had been resolved.

The issue involved weight and balance information provided by AeroData Inc. that is needed for flight planning, the agency said in a statement. The interruption lasted for about 48 minutes starting at 5:24 a.m. in Washington, the FAA said. Mainline and regional carriers were affected to varying degrees.

Details of an aircraft’s weight and how it’s distributed on board is required before a flight can take off. Such calculations also must be approved by airline dispatchers in remote offices, complicating flight schedules if communications or computer systems crash. A call to AeroData wasn’t immediately returned.

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United said 150 flights by its United Express regional carriers were delayed. “Some flights that were affected have departed, and we’re working to get all affected flights back on schedule,” the carrier said in a statement. Delta said it didn’t expect any cancellations among the Delta Connection flights delayed by the outage.

Southwest had 585 delays at 9:06 a.m. in New York, according to flight tracker website FlightAware.com, while JetBlue had 199.

Several departure flights were delayed at T.F. Green Monday and even more arrivals were affected. A Southwest flight to Orlando from T.F. Green was also cancelled, but it was not immediately clear if the cancellation was related to the outage.

Justin Bachman and Mary Schlangenstein are reporters for Bloomberg News. PBN contributed to this article.

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