FAA says American Airlines flights ground stopped nationwide

CNBC ^ | 9-16-2015 | Fred Imbert

[tcrlaf]

The Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday American Airlines flights experienced nationwide ground stops amid computer issues.

[Buffalo Bob]

Please tell me, not Krakozhia again!

[PAR35]

You may have identified the problem.

[fwdude]

iOS 9?

[ladyjane]

Merging USAirways and American has been such a challenge they don’t need sabotage. More likely it’s just a merger mess.

I’ve been trying to get onto American’s website today. It’s usually difficult but it’s impossible to get it to work today.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Isn’t this the second this has happened recently?

[Vinnie]

Talked to my son. It was primarily a reservations glitch. Not much affect on operations.

[PAR35]

Dallas paper says that the USAir hubs didn’t have the problem. The airline denies that the op center had anything to do with it.

[PAR35]

Not much affect on operations.

Well, if you consider shutting down three hubs for one and three quarter hours and delaying hundreds of flights as not having much affect. Sounds like it had an EFFECT, however.

[wally_bert]

Maybe an evil printer driver?

All printers and their drivers are evil incarnate. I hate and despise them all.

[aomagrat]

Merging USAirways and American has been such a challenge they don’t need sabotage. More likely it’s just a merger mess.

Last Saturday I flew from Ontario CA to Columbia SC. When I checked in at Ontario I received a boarding pass for my American flight from Ontario to Dallas but not for my US Air flight on to Columbia. My bags were also not checked through to Columbia. When I questioned the American employee, she told me to get my US Air boarding pass from the US Air counter and I had to claim my bags and recheck them with US Air when I changed planes.

So I went to the US Air counter and told the US Air employee what the American employee had told me. She went ballistic and went to the American counter and went full bore R. Lee Ermey on them. Then she returned to me and issued boarding passes for all my flights that day and correctly checked my bags to my final destination.

[exit82]

She went ballistic and went to the American counter and went full bore R. Lee Ermey on them.

Great word picture.

Sounds like someone that should be working in the Trump Administration in Jan. 2017.

[dfwgator]

[ladyjane]

So maybe it was employee sabotage?

[apoliticalone]

These corporate mergers have become strictly excuses to give the hired hand CEOs a big bonus for doing nothing (or worse like Carly Fiorina with CPQ).

Typically the end result is a lesser company and less competition. They screw shareholders, customers, customer service, reduce innovation, and almost always increase costs to customers.

I was a long time member of what was when it started out years ago a very small credit union. It ended up much larger not by serving their customers but by doing mergers. The CEO would tout the increased number of members, but their loan rates kept going up and deposit rates going down. They once had almost no fees and ended up with more fees than a bank. I examined their IRS non-profit tax form only to discover that the CEO was making close to a million who got big raises every year for making it bigger through mergers, not through better service. This is the gig that is played all over America, whether it be airlines or banks, etc.. We need competition to make better businesses.

[ladyjane]

American Airlines was bankrupt when USAirways bailed them out. Two very different airline cultures. Two very different computer systems. The merger has been painful.