American Airlines flight delays on Christmas Eve as system goes down across country: Live updates

American Airlines has been forced to request a ground stop for all its flights due to the ongoing system outage.

‘A technical issue is affecting American flights this morning,’ the carrier said in a statement.

‘Our teams are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, and we apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.’

Lengthy have begun to build at Louisville International Airport in Kentucky.

Disgruntled passengers could beseen stood around in the departure hall as they await updates.

‘It’s absolute chaos here right now, Louisville is a mid-sized airport so I can only imagine what places like Atlanta looks like after the American Airlines system glitch,’ reporter Hayden Smith said.

A snow storm which has blown in on the East Coast could jeopardize travel plans even further.

The wintery scenes arrived just in time for rush hour and could prove an unwelcome early Christmas gift.

Meanwhile on the West Coast, a bomb cyclone has dumped heavy rain, snow and high winds in parts.

Queues began to form early in the morning at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport following the ground stop.

American Airlines passengers are being advised to check for updates to their itinterary even though the ground stop has now been lifted.

The Federal Aviation Authority has ended the ground stop affecting all American Airlines flights.

The ground stop was lifted at 7:50am EST, an hour after it was put in place.

Delays are still expected across the country as the airline scrambles to get back on track.

The early morning groundstop has already resulted in around 160 cancelled or delayed flights, accoridng to FlightAware.

Between 5am and 9am, there were 156 delays and four cancelled flights.

Most delays were being reported at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport.