US airlines were affected by a system-wide computer outage after the Aerodata planning and balance system went down. It is the last application used by pilots before the entry door is closed.
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The Federal Aviation Administration told passengers to contact their carriers to assess delays as nearly 3,000 flights were delayed because of the outage which lastest 40 minutes on Monday morning.
Airlines affected included Delta, United, JetBlue, Southwest and Alaska.
Southwest experienced most of the delays (18 percent of the total) although that could also have been caused by ongoing issues around the grounding of Boeing 737 Max jets. Southwest delayed 620 early flights.
SkyWest, a commuter airline affiliated with United and Delta Airlines, delayed 200 flights and United Continental had about 150 regional flights delayed.
By midday the airlines were working to get their flights back on schedule.
Air traffic booming around the world
Air traffic is on the rise worldwide, picking up by 6.3 percent in 2016. But not all carriers and airports have profited from the trend, or at least not to the same extent. Often, big money is made elsewhere.
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Crowded skies
More passengers mean more aircraft in use. Asia's fleet for instance is set to be twice as big by 2035 to total about 17,000 planes. North America will have some 9,800 aircraft and Europe's about 7,900 (up from 4,610 today).
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Becker
Pilots in high demand
More planes in use mean more pilots are needed. Boeing reckons that about 617,000 new pilots will have to be recruited by 2035, particularly in Asia. On top of that, there's a need for 679,000 new maintenance staff and 814,000 additional flight assistants, says Boeing. Airbus sees a need for 560,000 new pilots.
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The biggest hubs
Europe's biggest hubs in terms of passenger numbers are London Heathrow, Paris-Charles De Gaulle and Frankfurt in Germany, handling between 73 million and 64 million passengers. In Frankfurt, over 2 million tons of cargo were dealt with in 2014. The world's largest airport in Atlanta in the US boasted 100 million passengers in 2015.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/F. Rumpenhorst
Budget airlines to the rescue
Growth at German aviation hubs is not so much a result of booming German carriers. It's more about the strength of foreign airlines. The number of German carriers' take-offs has shrunk steadily over the past six years. By contrast, no-frills competitors such as Ryanair and Easyjet have seen a 14-percent rise in take-offs from German airports.
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Largest strike action in history
German flagship carrier Lufthansa was able to log 1.8 billion euros ($1.94 billion) in profit last year, beating results from a year earlier and despite a series of strikes crippling the airline. Industrial action organized by the VC pilots' union since 2014 has cost Lufthansa about half a billion euros. Meanwhile, management and pilots have struck a deal in principle.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Jensen
The biggest earners
Aviation is a lucrative business, but some market players do better than others. While airlines tend to get a 4-percent yield on their invested capital, German airport operators and plane manufacturers secure between 6 and 7 percent. Doing even better are air traffic control, haulers and booking services, which - says a McKinsey study - can get as much as 20 percent in proceeds from capital.
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What's in store for us?
Here you are: beds for tired travelers, massagers and generous legroom, childcare services and a bar plus shower cabinets to make you feel alright. This is what passengers hope they will see on board in the not-too-distant future. Should this become a reality, passenger numbers are bound to soar further.
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Planning and balance since 1990
The Aerodata planning and balance system is used to evenly distribute weight on planes. It is particularly important for airlines operating regional and commuter flights.
Pilots rely on it as it is the last application they use before the aircraft entry door is closed before takeoff. Just five minutes of downtime can cause over 100 delayed flights.
AeroData won a 1990 contract with the FAA to "distribute its public domain data." It provides airlines with aircraft performance data, other aircraft management applications, and a "compute server system" to host these services.
As Aerodata has data centers in Arizona and in Colorado, is it unclear why the outage should have occurred. There are concerns it may have been caused by computer hackers.
Last week there were problems with the Sabre ticketing and reservation system used by a number of airlines. This caused a series of delays in airports in the US last Tuesday.