American Airlines Doesn’t Have Any Pilots For Christmas Because Of Computer Glitch

Christmas is one of the busiest times of the year for all modes of travel. People just want to get to their destinations so that they can see their families over the holiday season. You can imagine that airlines particularly try to win over as much business as they possibly can over this busy season. It seems that American Airlines is out of luck this holiday season as a computer glitch has left it without any pilots. The said glitch has allowed all of the airline’s pilots to take a vacation during the week of Christmas.

The union that represents the airline’s pilots has told Reuters that more than 15,000 airplanes currently don’t have any pilot assignments in December.

The management disclosed the computer glitch to the union recently. The union said in a statement that “thousands of flights currently do not have pilots assigned to fly them during the upcoming critical holiday period.”

The system that bids for pilots’ off days based on seniority has reportedly developed a glitch of some sort. This has led to the system granting time off to all American Airlines pilots during the holiday season.

American Airlines says that it’s working on a solution. While the computer glitch will be sorted out in due course, it’s also offering 1.5x pay for pilots to fill in during this period. The airline has also said that it has reserve pilots to help cover flying in December and that it’s going to pay pilots “as much as we are allowed to pay them per the contract” to solve this problem.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Transportation
Tags: american airlines