Pipeline crisis forces American Airlines to adopt tech stops

American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth) long-haul flights affected by a cyber attack-caused fuel supply shortage are to return to normal by May 15, 2021, the airline says. The carrier was forced to add refuelling stops to a pair of its long-haul flights after hackers on May 7 caused the shut-down of the Colonial Pipeline, the country’s biggest fuel conduit that stretches from Texas to New Jersey. It delivers jet fuel directly to the airports of Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson, Charlotte Int’l, Baltimore Thurgood Marshall, Nashville Int’l, and Washington DC. It also supplies other major eastern airports, such as those in New York, through other pipelines with which it connects. Two of American’s daily flights from Charlotte Int’l were affected by the outage: Flight AA 569 to Honolulu, usually a 10-hour non-stop service, was forced to route via Dallas/Fort Worth; while Flight AA 730 to London Heathrow, usually only eight hours direct, had to refuel in Boston. American also offered flight options for the latter destination via Chicago O’Hare, New York JFK, Philadelphia Int’l, Miami Int’l, and Washington Dulles, the airline’s schedule revealed. “We are closely monitoring the situation and working around the clock to ensure that we have an adequate supply of fuel across our network,” American said in a statement. CNN reported that Southwest Airlines (WN, Dallas Love Field) said it was having fuel trucked in, but that Delta Air Lines (DL, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson) and United Airlines (UA, Chicago O’Hare) had not reported disruptions to their schedules. After a six-day shut-down, the Colonial Pipeline on May 12 reported it had begun the process of restarting its supplies to the US East Coast, but said it would take several days for the delivery of fuel to normalise. The system transports more than 2.5 million barrels per day of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from the US Gulf Coast to the Southeast and East Coast.