Google Issue Crashes Websites for Big Three Airlines

The flight search and booking options on the respective websites for the Big Three U.S. airlines – American, Delta and United – were briefly shut down on Monday after a Google software issue.

The problem lasted about two hours, during which all three airlines resorted to social media to get their message across and urged potential customers to use their respective phone numbers to make reservations.

A spokesperson for Google confirmed to the Washington-based political publication The Hill that there is a “known issue” on the tech company’s side of the flight system.

“Earlier today, a data error impacted our flight shopping software, which prevented airline partners, as well as Google Flights, from showing fare information,” Google said in a statement. “We’ve implemented a fix and the issue has now been mitigated. We’ll continue to monitor to ensure this is fully resolved.”

“Delta is engaged with a third-party vendor that is currently troubleshooting a technical issue that is impacting the ability for customers to search for and book flights on Delta.com and the Fly Delta app. Delta’s Customers can still check in for flights and use the platforms to search for other flight planning information. We apologize for the inconvenience,” Delta said in a statement provided to The Hill.

The websites showed an error message when customers tried to book flights, an issue that came at a time when the airlines are enjoying a huge uptick in passengers after a year of financial losses from the coronavirus pandemic

Fortunately, it was a relatively brief outing, and all three airlines issued apologies.

“We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience. There was no impact to flight operations and customers were still able to check in for flights through aa.com,” American Airlines said in a statement to The Hill.

“Delta.com and the Fly Delta app are functioning normally after experiencing an issue this afternoon that made it difficult for customers to purchase flights on delta.com, the Fly Delta app, and through our Reservations Call Center,” Delta said in a statement. “The issue was caused by the failure of technology provided to Delta and multiple airlines by Google. We apologize for any inconvenience this caused.”