AMERICAN Airlines grounded all of its flights nationwide after the company was hit by a “systemwide IT outage”, the FAA said.

The carrier was unable to let aircraft on the ground take off and planes had to sit at their gates waiting for the all clear.

American Airlines flights were grounded on Tuesday Credit: Getty

American Airlines planes parked at the gate at LaGuardia Airport Credit: Reuters

The stoppage took effect from 6.30pm ET on Tuesday and applied to all flights and facilities run by the airline.

On social media the airline said: “Our IT team is working as quickly as possible to get our system back up.”

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They later continued: “We put a temporary ground stop in place while our teams worked to resolve the issue. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”

At about 7.20pm the airline said “systems are coming back online now and flights are departing again.”

Flightradar24 said American and regional carriers operating on its behalf had 130 fewer flights airborne than the same time last week.