Some flights from Spain to U.S. delayed after glitch

MADRID (Reuters) – Several flights from Madrid airport to the United States were delayed on Wednesday morning, according to information released on the website of Aena, which operates the airport.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Wednesday it was working to restore a system that alerts pilots to hazards and changes to airport facilities and procedures that had stopped processing updated information. The glitch led to hundreds of flight delays in the United States.

Flights by a range of operators, including American Airlines, were showing as delayed by up to several hours to Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami, and New York, according to Aena’s website.

An American Airlines flight from Barcelona to Miami due to depart at 11:00 a.m (1000 GMT) was also delayed until 13:50 p.m., Aena’s website flight data showed.

Reuters was not able to immediately confirm the reason for the delays, though American Airlines said on its Twitter account it was working with the FAA to minimise customer disruptions related to the system outage.

Flights operated by Iberia, the Spanish airline of International Consolidated Airlines Group, were unaffected, the airline said, as it can operate with an alternative system.

(Reporting by Corina Pons, Catherine Macdonald and Joan Faus, editing by Inti Landauro and Mark Potter)