All Air Canada and Rouge flights in the United States (US) were temporarily grounded due to “internal computer issues”.
A ground stop was issued by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) after 11:00am. ET on Thursday, May 25, 2023, confirming that Air Canada and Rouge flights to all destinations were on hold.
According to the FAA, the request came from Air Canada and its subsidiary carrier, Rouge.
The ground stop was lifted just under an hour later and flights were then able to resume.
“Air Canada experienced a temporary technical issue with its communicator system, one of the systems that it uses to communicate with aircraft and monitor operational performance,” a spokesperson for the airline said. “There have been some delays as a result, but the system is now returning to normal and the precautionary ground stop has been lifted.”
Air Canada thanked its passengers for their “understanding” in a tweet posted shortly after services were back up and running.
“We continue to recover from this morning’s IT issue and temporary ground stop program,” the airline wrote.
British Airways was also forced to cancel a number of flights on May 25 due to a technical problem.