Tech issues, storms wreak havoc for travelers coming in and out of RDU

Several airlines experienced a turbulent night on Tuesday at Raleigh-Durham International Airport after storms and a "tech issue" with one airline caused problems.

According to American Airlines on X, the issue affected the connectivity of some of its systems on Tuesday, but added that systems are coming back online as of 7:21 p.m.

"We put a temporary ground stop in place while our teams worked to resolve the issue," the company said.

When asked about how the tech issue affected flights at RDU, airport officials directed any questions about the tech issues back to American Airlines.

Beyond the tech issue affecting American Airlines, strong storms rolled across the airport and caused more headaches for passengers.

Krista Joy, who was on an American Airlines flight that landed just after 7 p.m., said she was on the plane for hours after it landed because of the tech issues and the storms.

"They told us about the outage when we landed and couldn't get to the gate. Then we were cleared to move closer to the gate, and then the lightning started, and it was unsafe for the workers," Joy said.

A check of RDU's flight status site around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday showed dozens of flights canceled or delayed.  At least some of those cancellations and delays may be related to thunderstorms in the Northeast, which led to ground stops at JFK, LaGuardia, Newark and Boston.