The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) briefly grounded all JetBlue flights early Tuesday morning at the airline’s request, according to an advisory posted by the agency’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center.
The nationwide ground stop, which applied to all destinations and facilities, was in effect from 12:35 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. ET, the FAA advisory shows.
“Operations are normal after JetBlue asked the FAA to pause flights nationwide overnight because of an internal IT issue,” the FAA said in a statement.
JetBlue told FOX Business in a statement: “A brief system outage has been resolved and we have resumed operations.”
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Ground stops temporarily prevent flights from departing while an issue is addressed, though aircraft already in the air are typically allowed to continue to their destinations.
The brief grounding comes as airlines have grappled with technology-related disruptions in recent years.
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In October, Alaska Airlines issued a systemwide ground stop for Alaska and Horizon Air flights after a failure at its primary data center triggered a significant IT outage, leading to hundreds of cancellations over two days and disrupting travel plans for tens of thousands of passengers.
The carrier later said it was bringing in outside technical experts to strengthen its systems and “diagnose our entire IT infrastructure to ensure we are as resilient as we need to be. ”
In June, American Airlines experienced a “technology issue” that disrupted operations and led to widespread delays.
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Some travelers reported lengthy wait times on the tarmac as the carrier worked to resolve the problem.
The airline said a connectivity issue had affected certain systems but that it worked with partners to restore the impacted applications and return operations to normal.
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