The airlines experienced an issue with a flight planning weight and balance program called Aerodata. Major airlines in the U.S. reported systemwide outages Monday due to what the Federal Aviation Administration called an issue "with a flight planning weight and balance program called Aerodata." The list of airlines experiencing problems included Southwest Airlines (LUV) - Get Report , Delta Air Lines (DAL) - Get Report , United Continental (UAL) - Get Report , JetBlue (JBLU) - Get Report and Alaska Airlines (ALK) - Get Report . Southwest Airlines' Twitter account has been busy Monday assuring stranded passengers that the company is "working hard to get back to full functionality." Meanwhile, American Airlines (AAL) - Get Report , the country's largest carrier, said that while its main operations remained unaffected by the outages, regional carriers nationwide were feeling the effects. The FAA issued a statement at around 8:30 AM saying that the issue has been fixed. Southwest Airlines shares are up 0.56%, Delta Airlines was gaining 0.2%, JetBlue was up 1%, United was up 0.5%, American Airlines was rising 1.13% and Alaska Air was up 1.16%. Will I Have Enough Money to Retire? Want to learn about retirement planning from some of the nation's top experts? Join TheStreet's Robert "Mr. Retirement" Powell live in New York on April 6 for our Retirement Strategies Symposium. For a limited time, tickets are available for $99 for this full-day event. Check out the agenda, learn about the speakers and sign up here.<doc-sep>U.S. airlines were briefly hit by systemwide computer outages on Monday related to problems with the Aerodata planning weight and balance program, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The outage affected several airlines, including Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, United Airlines and Alaska Air Group. After reporting problems along with several major peers, however, Southwest said that technical issues had already been resolved and that systems would be back up soon. The airline said earlier that flights were delayed and planes that were taxiing had to return to their gates. Delta Airlines, which reporting a system-wide outage earlier Monday, confirmed that data had become available and flights were operating normally, with no cancellations planned. Earlier, carriers had reported problems through their social media accounts, with United Airlines saying it was unable to create paperwork as a result. American Airlines said the outage was affecting regional carriers nationwide, but has announced that AeoroData problems were resolved. Alaska Air Group Inc also said on its social media account that it was experiencing a system-wide outage. Southwest said in a statement that it has "lifted an internal ground stop implemented for about 40 minutes this morning during an outage with a vendor that services multiple carriers with data used in flight planning. Scattered flight delays are anticipated and Customers should check Southwest.com for the latest updates on specific flights." Last week, several airlines reported problems after Sabre, a company airlines use for printing tickets and making reservations, had technical issues. Sabre said it was not responsible for software issues Monday.<doc-sep>A fault in software used by most US airlines caused a wave of flight delays this morning across the US, affecting hundreds of flights. "Several airlines are experiencing issues with a non-FAA flight planning weight and balance program called AeroData," a Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement. "Mainline operations and regional operations are affected to varying degrees." That software, provided as a service by AeroData Inc., is used to perform weight and balance calculations needed for flight planning—which is particularly important for airlines operating regional and commuter flights. Today's software outage only lasted for about 40 minutes, but it had a rippling effect across the US. Southwest Airlines was the most heavily affected by the outage as the airline had to delay 620 early flights. SkyWest, a commuter airline affiliated with United and Delta Airlines, had over 200 flights delayed. United Continental had about 150 regional flights delayed. AeroData, based in Scottsdale Arizona, is a family-owned corporation with a very low profile on the Internet. According to the company's public website (which hasn't been updated since the company moved from Colorado to Arizona in 2008), AeroData won a 1990 contract with the FAA to "distribute its public domain data." In addition to the weight and balance system, the company also provides airlines with aircraft performance data, other aircraft management applications, and a "compute server system" to host these services. A Web portal to access the company's software (based on Flash and Microsoft Studio 7.0) was last updated in 2009. The portal advises visitors, "We will be enhancing our Web site in the coming months using Microsoft Silverlight technology." Access to the portal is controlled by customer credentials and IP address. Ars attempted to reach AeroData for comment, but we received no response. We will update this story if more information becomes available.<doc-sep>Multiple airlines, including Southwest, American and Delta, saw their planes temporarily grounded early Monday morning due to a computer outage in a central system. As a result, travelers can expect lingering flight delays as airlines play catch-up. The Federal Aviation Administration said several airlines experienced issues with AeroData, a program that provides weight-and-balance information that is necessary to grant clearance for takeoff. The FAA said severity varied by airline. Southwest Airlines said the outage grounded flights for about 40 minutes. Airline spokesman Dan Landson said that scattered flight delays are anticipated and customers should check Southwest.com for the latest updates on specific flights. "We’re working with customers on any impacts to their travel plans and we appreciate their understanding as we place nothing higher than the safe operation of every flight,'' he said in a statement. By 8:15 a.m. EDT, American Airlines announced via Twitter that the issue, which had affected its regional flights, had been resolved. “Earlier this morning, AeroData had a technical issue that impacted a few of our regional carriers,'' American spokesman Ross Feinstein said in a statement. "This technical issue has been resolved. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.” Delta spokeswoman Savannah Huddleston said that airline was also back up and running after the AeroData outage, which had prevented its regional Delta Connection flights from taking off. “A brief third-party technology issue that prevented some Delta Connection flights from being dispatched on time this morning has been resolved,'' she said in a statement. ''No cancellations are expected due to the issue and our teams are working to resolve some resulting delays.'' Delta advised travelers to check their flight's status. Passengers complaining about the delays on Twitter said they were told it was a pilot paperwork issue.<doc-sep>
Multiple airlines on Monday were experiencing systemwide outages causing anger among travelers. Southwest, JetBlue and Delta confirmed the outages to Fox News and said they are working to remedy the issue as quickly as possible. AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT FORCED TO RETURN TO BOSTON AIRPORT AFTER STRIKING FLOCK OF GEESE Early Monday morning, Southwest responded on Twitter to a beleaguered flier. “It's affecting our flights system wide, and we're working to see if it's affecting any other carriers this morning as well. In the meantime, once more information has been made available our Agents at the airport will be happy to disseminate it to y'all.” A few minutes later, Delta also addressed the problem with a customer: “I completely apologize, we are currently experiencing a System-Wide Outage we are working diligently to get it back up and running. We do not have a specific time as yet.” The FAA said in a statement the airlines were experiencing issues "with a flight planning weight and balance program called Aerodata. Mainline operations and regional operations are impacted to varying degrees." The agency said United, JetBlue and Alaska Airlines were also affected. Southwest Airlines later released a statement about the issue. "As of 6:05am CDT, Southwest Airlines has lifted an internal ground stop implemented for about 40 minutes this morning during an outage with a vendor that services multiple carriers with data used in flight planning,” the airline told Fox News. “Scattered flight delays are anticipated and Customers should check Southwest.com for the latest updates on specific flights. We're working with Customers on any impacts to their travel plans and we appreciate their understanding as we place nothing higher than the safe operation of every flight.” Southwest and Delta Airlines fliers tweeted about their displeasure with their delays. FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS Last week, travelers across the country were experiencing widespread computer outages causing delays across multiple airlines. American Airlines, Alaska Airlines and JetBlue were among the carriers affected. Fox News’ Michael Bartiromo contributed to this report.