On the morning of Tuesday, December 24, passengers preparing to travel with American Airlines from Las Americas International Airport (AILA) formed lines that usually advanced, even though hours earlier, the FAA had announced a suspension of all its flights due to a technical problem.
At 10:41 a.m., the first travelers, bound for Miami, United States, arrived on the flight scheduled to leave at around 1:22 p.m.
It is one of four flights scheduled by the U.S. airline at AILA: two departing and two arriving, all in the afternoon.
On Christmas Eve, one of the busiest dates in U.S. air traffic, the airline asked its country’s air regulator to suspend its flights after detecting a technical problem affecting its entire system.
According to Diario Libre, the FAA ordered all American flights to be grounded.
In a statement, the airline apologized to travelers “for all the inconvenience caused” and assured that all staff “are working diligently to get customers where they need to go as quickly as possible.”
It also asks users to access its website or mobile application, from where they can access updated information about their flight.
The airline did not specify whether the suspension affected flights to the Dominican Republic.
A flight from Miami to Santo Domingo took off at 9:09 a.m., about 28 minutes after its scheduled time of 8:41 a.m., according to data from Flightradar24.
According to the flight tracker, the flight is expected to arrive safely in the country at 12:16 p.m.
A second flight of the airline from Miami arrives at AILA at 2:20.
From the airport, two flights depart to Miami with American Airlines, one at 1:22 in the afternoon and the other at 3:20 in the afternoon.