Technical glitch affecting major airlines resolved, but flights still disrupted

A technical glitch at an outside aviation company led to delays at major U.S. airlines Monday.

The issue has been resolved, but it may cause some a disruption in travel plans. There are delays early Monday at airports in Chicago, New York, Boston, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami and Detroit and Washington, D.C.

As of 8:23 a.m., travelers at O’Hare were facing delays of less than 15 minutes, while delays at Midway were averaging 22 minutes, according to the Chicago Department of Aviation.

Additionally, 24 flights had been cancelled at O’Hare and 21 others had been grounded at Midway, the CDA said. It was unclear whether the cancellations were related to the technical issues.

“Several airlines are experiencing issues with a non-FAA flight planning weight and balance program called Aerodata,” according to a statement from Tony Molinaro, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. “Mainline operations are affected to varying degrees.”

Molinaro said the issues with the system had been resolved by 8:15 a.m. However, he urged travelers to contact individual airlines for information about specific delays.

Molinaro said the software issues were affecting Southwest, United, JetBlue, Delta and Alaska Airlines flights.

Midway serves as the largest hub for Southwest, which tweeted out apologies to individual customers on Monday morning.

“[The issue is] affecting out flights system wide, and we’re working to see if it’s affecting any other carriers this morning as well,” the airline said.

American Airlines said the technical issue was related to AeroData, a company that makes aircraft location technology. The glitch affected a few of its regional carriers

Southwest Airlines lifted an internal ground stop at 7:05 Eastern that had been implemented for about 40 minutes. The airline anticipates scattered delays.

Some United Airlines regional carriers were hampered by the issue, which resulted in delays for select United Express flights, the company said. About 150 flights were impacted, according to United.

“Some flights that were affected have departed, and we’re working to get all affected flights back on schedule,” United said.

Delta said that the outage prevented some of its Delta Connection flights from leaving on time. The airline doesn’t anticipate flight cancellation.