The aircraft was about to perform its first passenger flight after spending six months on the ground.
Passengers on an American Airlines flight from Dallas/Fort Worth to Las Vegas were reportedly met with a maintenance issue Sunday evening, which resulted in a lengthy delay with “no update on departure.” The flight was operated by an Airbus A321 and appeared to have never pushed back from its gate.
After an initial delay of about six hours, American indicated the flight would depart early Monday morning. However, flight data shows the departure time has been pushed back to Monday evening, nearly 24 hours after its scheduled departure time.
“Well done as usual”
According to FlightAware, AA1771 operates from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) to Harry Reid International Airport (LAS). It was originally scheduled to push back from gate D17 on Sunday at 18:52 CDT and arrive at LAS at 19:43 PDT. John Petrisek’s son was onboard the flight and wrote to American on X, expressing frustration about the incident.
It is unclear how long passengers may have been onboard the aircraft. However, Petrisek’s comments were posted nearly an hour after the flight’s scheduled departure of 18:52 CDT. An American representative did not respond to the post until hours later, at around 23:50, explaining that the flight had a new departure time.
“Not the way we wanted his birthday to go at all, we see there’s an ETD at 12:38a, and our team will do their best to get him in the air soon!” they said.
Photo: Angel DiBilio | Shutterstock
Minutes later, Petrisek commented back that his son “was able to find an alternate flight out of Dallas a couple of hours ago.”
Delaying even further
Despite the representative confirming the flight’s updated departure time of 00:38 on Monday, flight data indicates that AA1771 is not slated to leave DFW until 17:00 on Monday. Passengers who could not be accommodated on other flights or chose to wait now face a delay of 22 hours. It will depart nearly two hours before the Monday edition of AA1771, scheduled for an on-time departure of 18:52.
Simple Flying reached out to American late Sunday to learn more about the incident.
According to Planespotters.net, the aircraft at the center of the complication is N556UW, a nearly 12-year-old A321. Notably, Flightradar24 indicates the plane was ferried from El Salvador International Airport (SAL) on Sunday as AA9785. It arrived at DFW at 18:21 – only 31 minutes before it was supposed to depart for LAS.
Six months of maintenance?
N556UW spent six weeks on the ground SAL as it was likely undergoing heavy maintenance. According to The Central American Group, the airport is home to Latin America’s largest aircraft maintenance center, operated by maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) company Aeroman.
American has a history of sending its A321s to the facility. Last month, Simple Flying reported the completion of the airline’s first A321T conversion to the standard A321 seating layout, which was believed to have been performed at SAL.
Flight data shows that N556UW remains at gate D17 at DFW. It is scheduled to operate as AA1660 to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on Monday.
Source: Simple Flying
