Flight management system crash causes airline delays across US

Enlarge / Southwest was hardest hit by a software glitch that delayed flights nationwide. (credit: Luiz Eduardo)

A fault in software used by most US airlines caused a wave of flight delays this morning across the US, affecting hundreds of flights. "Several airlines are experiencing issues with a non-FAA flight planning weight and balance program called AeroData," a Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement. "Mainline operations and regional operations are affected to varying degrees."

That software, provided as a service by AeroData Inc., is used to perform weight and balance calculations needed for flight planning-which is particularly important for airlines operating regional and commuter flights. Today's software outage only lasted for about 40 minutes, but it had a rippling effect across the US.

Southwest Airlines was the most heavily affected by the outage as the airline had to delay 620 early flights. SkyWest, a commuter airline affiliated with United and Delta Airlines, had over 200 flights delayed. United Continental had about 150 regional flights delayed.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments