Air Canada recovering after tech glitch briefly grounds flights

Air Canada is recovering from a temporary ground stop that was ordered on Thursday (May 25), an action that delayed more than 240 Air Canada flights that day, according to FlightAware.

The airline says the precautionary measure, caused by a “technical issue," has since been lifted. 

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a ground stop on all of Air Canada and Rouge’s destinations in the U.S. due to unspecified "internal computer issues." The notice was issued just after 11 a.m. EST yesterday.

According to the FAA, the order, which reportedly lasted about an hour, came at the request of Air Canada, CBC News reported. 

Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick later confirmed with CBC that the airline's systems were returning to normal.

"Air Canada experienced a temporary technical issue with its communicator system, one of the systems that it uses to communicate with aircraft and monitor operational performance," Fitzpatrick told the outlet on Thursday. "There have been some delays as a result, but the system is now returning to normal and the precautionary ground stop has been lifted."

According to reports, there is no reason to believe that the issue is a cybersecurity incident.

The morning delays, however, rolled into the afternoon, delaying passengers. 

In an update posted to Twitter at 3:17 p.m. EST on Thursday, Air Canada wrote that it was continuing to recover from the "IT issue and temporary ground stop," reminding passengers to check their flight times before going to the airport.

Technical problems have impacted other airlines in recent months. Southwest Airlines Co. in April blamed a one-hour stoppage of its flights on a vendor-supplied computer network firewall.

On Thursday, British Airways also cancelled dozens of flights ahead of a busy holiday weekend due to a tech-related problem.

Don't miss a single travel story: subscribe to PAX today!  Click here to follow PAX on Facebook.