American Airlines Flight Delays: iPad Glitches Create Flight Problems for Passengers
Travelers flying on American Airlines flights Tuesday night experienced delays after pilots experienced glitches using the iPads they use for electronic flight plans.
Because of the glitches, American Airlines was forced to ground dozens of flights, USAToday reports.
One passenger, Dan Webb, said on Twitter that he was supposed to head home from Dallas to Austin aboard American Airlines Flight 1654 when he and other passengers were informed of the problem.
Webb said that passengers were allowed to get off the plane if they wished. Webb decided to take the airline's offer and got off the plane.
American said in an e-mail to USAToday that the problems on the iPads had to do with the software applications on the devices. Approximately two dozen flights were grounded because of the iPad problems, Andrea Huguely, American Airlines director of corporate communications, said.
"In some cases, the flight has had to return to the gate to access a Wi-Fi connection to fix the issue," Huguely said.
"We apologize for the inconvenience to our customers," she said. "We are working to have them on the way to their destination as soon as possible."
American started using iPads in cockpits two years ago. They became the first airline to use them on all flights. The tablets allow the heavy Flight Bags, weighing more than 35 pounds, that pilots carry onto flights to be replaced with an electronic version. This saved 24 million pages of paper and could save the airline more than $1 million in fuel costs, the airline said.
By replacing the Flight Bags with iPads, American Airlines risked malfunctions. Angry travelers were expressing their feelings on Twitter about the iPad issues, and Webb decided to board a different flight to Austin.
Another passenger who was aboard the flight scheduled to fly to Austin, Bill Jacaruso, said the airline sat on the runway for quite some time and recalls what the pilot said to passengers.
"He said, 'My copilot's iPad went black. Exactly 24 minutes after that, mine went black. We were informed it looks like a problem with all the iPads on 737s,' " Jacaruso said.
The crew on the plane explained that the software on the iPads gives them flight plans. This is critical information and with the iPads down, they were unable to access the flight plans.
Just two weeks ago, the U.S. Government Accountability Office warned that on-board WiFi systems could be used to bring down a plane. No one was injured because of the iPad glitches, but about a dozen travelers used other means to get to their destinations.
American Airlines says that the glitch was not the fault of Apple, but of a third party app on the iPad, according to NBCNews.
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