Spirit Airlines and Air Canada delays reported after separate IT issues

Spirit Airlines said it had resolved a "technical issue" that temporarily crashed its website, check-in kiosks and app, causing major delays.

It blamed a "network issue between third party services". More than half of its scheduled flights were delayed on Thursday, Flight Aware data showed.

Separately, Air Canada also said it was "experiencing an IT issue causing flight delays".

More than 190 of its flights were delayed, according to Flight Aware.

Some 28 Air Canada flights were cancelled on Thursday, as of 13:30 EST (18:30 BST).

The cancellations affected flights to and from Air Canada's hub at Toronto Pearson International, as well as Vancouver, Ottawa, and Montreal.

Spirit Airlines flights to and from Florida, its home state, were particularly affected by cancellations, with 35 flights axed.

In the US, complaints about airline performance have soared since the pandemic.

Last month, US President Joe Biden called for new rules that would require airlines to pay passengers affected by flight delays and cancellations.

The Federal Aviation Administration referred questions about the Spirit incident to the airline, which routinely performs poorly in cancellation and flight delay rankings.