The world’s biggest airline is having a Ryanair moment, and it could spell major disruption for flyers over the busy Christmas period.
American Airlines is blaming an IT glitch for assigning too may pilots leave over the upcoming Christmas season.
The Fort Worth-based carrier hopes to avoid flight cancelations by bringing in reserve pilots.
Other pilots who have been assigned vacation will be offered 150% of their salaries to get back in the cockpit.
"We are working diligently to address the issue and expect to avoid cancellations this holiday season," spokesman Matt Miller said in a statement.
"We will work with the union to take care of our pilots and ensure we get our customers to where they need to go over the holidays."
The airline declined to say how many flights are currently impacted by a pilot shortfall although the Allied Pilots Association estimated it could be at least 15,000 between December 17 and 31.
These are flights short of a captain, a co-pilot or both.
The airline is scheduled to operate more than 200,000 flights throughout December.
"Basically there’s a crisis at American for manning the cockpits," union spokesman Dennis Tajer said.
AA has not disclosed exactly how the system scheduling glitch occurred.
It allows pilots to bid for time off based on seniority but the glitch has somehow approved thousands of requests even when there was no pilot cover.
"The system went from responsibly scheduling everybody to becoming Santa Claus to everyone," Tajer said, calling it a ‘man-made snowstorm.’
The snafu is similar to the one which befell budget carrier Ryanair in September causing millions in lost revenue and a PR disaster.
Ryanair scheduled too many pilots for vacation after moving to a new system.
