Boston (TAN): United States airlines were temporarily affected earlier this week by data issues, the country’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said.
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The computer outage was reportedly related to Aerodata, a programme that is used for planning weight and balance for flights. Airline dispatchers in remote offices approve weight and balance calculations before a flight can take off, which is why flight schedules can be disturbed if computer systems crash.
The problem started early morning, and lasted for 48 odd minutes. Although the situation was resolved, the data disruption had hit at least five airlines, including Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, JetBlue, and Alaska Air. Hundreds of flights were delayed in several major cities across the country, from New York to Boston, and Chicago to Miami.
The FAA took to Twitter to advise flyers to get in touch directly with airlines for flight updates.
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Dan Landson, a spokesperson from Southwest Airlines was quoted by Bloomberg as saying: “Because of our size and scope, and combined with our ground stop, it had a pretty big impact to our operation.”
“Some flights that were affected have departed, and we’re working to get all affected flights back on schedule,” United Airlines was quoted by media reports as saying.
