American Airlines has suffered a huge scheduling computer glitch which has resulted in a large number of pilots booking their holidays over the Christmas period.
This means that there are no pilots available during the dates of December 17th to December 31st.
Affecting 15,000 flights, according to Reuters, thousands of passengers could be affected and left stranded during Christmas.
The Allied Pilots Association have released a statement confirming the problem in a statement, warning that “thousands of flights are in jeopardy of cancellation”.
American Airlines is reportedly offering 150 per cent of the pilots hourly rate to come back and work during this period.
The airline told Express.co.uk: “We are working diligently to address the issue and expect to avoid cancellations this holiday season.
“We have reserve pilots to help cover flying in December, and we are paying pilots who pick up certain open trips 150 percent of their hourly rate – as much as we are allowed to pay them per the contract.
“We will work with the APA to take care of our pilots and ensure we get our customers to where they need to go over the holidays.”
Some of the airports affected are Dallas, Boston, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City and Charlotte in North Carolina, according to a memo from the airline to the pilots seen by CNBC.
Sam Sweeney from ABC tweeted: “American Airlines says computer glitch allowed all pilots to take vacation over Christmas week.
“Now union says thousands of flights are in jeopardy of cancellation.
“Americans says they’re offering 1.5x pay for pilots to fill in and expect to resolve the issue.”
Passengers should keep an eye on their flight and get in touch with the airline to see if their flights could be affected.
A similar problem happened with Ryanair earlier this year after the airline suffered from a pilot shortage after many of them took their annual leave during the busy period.
The airline cancelled over 18,000 flights, affecting 700,000 passengers.
Many passengers then threatened to boycott the airline when they were left abroad without a flight.
