- author, Tom Bennett and Jonathan Josephs
- role, BBC News
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Major U.S. airlines have suspended flights across the country, citing communications problems.
The grounding appears to be linked to a global IT outage affecting banks, emergency services and airports around the world.
American Airlines, the world’s largest airline by passenger numbers, told the BBC that no flights had been cleared to take off and that it was in contact with all flights currently in the air.
The company claims the problem was caused by a “technical issue” with its antivirus software, CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike has not yet responded to the BBC’s request for comment.
Unconfirmed reports say the company has released a software update that has caused Windows devices to crash.
A spokesman for Los Angeles International Airport told the BBC that “some flights are taking off and landing”, suggesting the issue was primarily affecting airlines rather than the airport.
Delta Air Lines and United Airlines have been affected by the technology outage, as have many smaller airlines.
US airline Frontier said late on Thursday that a “significant Microsoft technical outage” had affected its operations.
Commenting on the developments, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the Department of Transportation is “monitoring technical issues” at Frontier Airlines, which “have led to cancellations and delays across the company’s network.”
Flights are also being suspended in other countries around the world.
At Japan’s Narita airport, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Tokyo, Jetstar, Jeju Air, Qantas, Hong Kong Express and Spring Airlines said they were experiencing problems with their systems.
Also in India, Delhi airport said some services were temporarily affected.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport is one of the latest airports to report delays due to an IT outage.
“The power outage is affecting flights to and from Schiphol airport,” a spokesman said, adding that it was not yet clear how many flights were affected.
