Technical issue at PSA Airlines Dayton headquarters grounds 675 flights

DAYTON — UPDATE @ 6:30 p.m. 

American Airlines spokesman Ross Feinstein said the 675 flights affected by the “technical issue” at PSA Airlines headquarters in Dayton are about 4 percent of American’s daily total of 7,000 flights.

Fourteen of 28 PSA flights in Dayton were canceled Friday.

American Airlines said they don’t think it will take until Sunday to resume normal operations, they think sometime Saturday. For example, there are 30 open seats on one flight out of Dayton Saturday.

Feinstein said this issue was strictly contained to PSA, and that their computer operation is not tied to theirs. All of American’s eight other regional carriers and American had no problems.

Although headquartered in Dayton, the biggest problem was to flights in and out of Charlotte.

UPDATE @ 12:10 p.m.

At least 16 American Airlines flights serviced through Dayton were canceled Thursday and Friday morning after service was halted at 4 p.m. last night due to technical difficulty in its operation center.

While the airline's flights, serviced regionally by PSA, are expected to be back on schedule as of noon today, many passengers affected by the cancellations will still be out of luck.

American Airlines may not fully recover from the cancellations until Sunday, said Terrence Slaybaugh, director of aviation for the city of Dayton and Dayton International Airport said. But, Feinstein said there were tickets available on American Airlines flights departing from Dayton on Friday and Saturday.

Airlines typically have agreements with other airlines to take on passengers when flights are cancelled. American Airlines makes their deals with Delta Airlines, said Slaybaugh.

“But we just don't have the capacity to help everyone,” he said. “It’s hard for them to just move people to other flights.”

Traveler Chris Williams was at the Dayton airport Friday morning, trying to get home to Greenville, North Carolina. He had multiple flights canceled and should have originally gotten home at 11:30 p.m. Thursday but now wasn’t scheduled to arrive back in Greenville until 7:30 p.m. Friday.

“I’m flying two different airlines and I’ve got three flights to get home and it’s still a little iffy, so here we go,” he said.

Williams travels a lot for work but said all the cancellations were “very frustrating.”

“I’m kind of used to it but it’s never been as bad as this …They said the system went down with PSA, and just the communication and everything,” Williams said.

Dayton resident Kevin Haldeman was in California for work earlier this week and ran into trouble when trying to travel home Thursday. His connecting flight from Chicago to Dayton was at first delayed for more than three hours and was eventually canceled.

“(I) didn’t have a firm flight or anything so I ended up getting a rental car and driving home last night …(I) got back about 3:30 this morning,” Haldeman said Friday.

UPDATE @ 11:25 a.m.: A "technical issue" at PSA Airlines headquarters in Dayton disrupted an estimated 675 flights since Thursday night.

The issue has been resolved and the carrier expects to resume operations this afternoon, American Airlines media relations officials said in a statement issued moments ago.

“Our team members are focused on taking care of our customers by accommodating them on mainline flights or other regional carriers. PSA canceled 275 flights on June 14 and 400 flights today.

“We never want to disrupt our customers’ travel plans, and we are sorry for the trouble this caused. Customer relations will be reaching out to all of those who have been impacted by this issue.

The problem began in Dayton on Thursday afternoon because of issues with the carrier’s dispatch and crew scheduling system.

Ross Feinstein, spokesman with American Airlines, which owns PSA, confirmed the Bloomberg report that the problem began in Dayton.

He would not go into detail or explain what is meant by “technical issue.”

According to Bloomberg, the outage has affected about 4 percent of American’s global flight operations, primarily shorter routes from its hub in Charlotte, N.C., American Airlines officials said by email Friday.

INITIAL REPORT

Flights to and from Dayton International Airport are being affected by the technical issue affecting Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in North Carolina.

Our news partner WSOC-TV is reporting that all PSA flights were canceled Thursday night because of the issue. PSA is a regional carrier of American Airlines and operates under the American Eagle brand.

More than a dozen outbound American Airlines flights from Dayton have been canceled. At least five American Airlines arrivals have been canceled and one flight has been delayed.

Go to flydayton.com to see if your flight is affected.

At least four American Airlines departures from Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport have been canceled.

We will update this developing report.