American Airlines passengers say they were told to disembark their plane shortly after boarding last Saturday, when the airline informed them that the aircraft’s crew had to go off duty.

The flight to Boston from Charlotte was already five hours delayed when passengers were finally asked to board, according to Sheila Gray, who spoke to Business Insider.

Ms Gray, who was returning with her husband and two daughters from Rome via Charlotte, said that the flight was delayed numerous times because was the plane was being repaired, according to staff at the gate.

When the plane eventually ready and the passengers boarded, it was only 20 minutes later that they were informed that they needed to disembark because “the crew has timed out and couldn’t fly. We all deplaned and started scrambling to see if we could find other flights”, Ms Gray said.

“People were angry and yelling at the gate agents.”

The passengers reboarded the aircraft once replacement pilots had been found and the flight departed.

There are limit to how many hours a pilot can fly without a break, per week and per month, set by the Federal Aviation Authority in order to ensure flight safety by avoiding pilot tiredness.

Limits depend on how many pilots are sharing responsibility for a flight and what time a pilot’s first flight was in the day. Rest periods must be at least 10 hours, and include the opportunity to sleep for eight hours.

Mr Gray claims that the airline offered no compensation. In the United States, airlines are under no obligation to compensate passengers when flights are delayed or cancelled. Compensation is only required when passengers are denied boarding if a flight has been oversold.

American Airlines, like many other airlines in the United States and around the world, has been experiencing wider challenges around staffing, including for flight crew.

Last month American announced that, as of this autumn, it will no longer be serving four small cities in Iowa, New York and Ohio owing to a lack of pilots available to fly to these destinations.

Staff shortages have seen flight cancellations in the UK too, both last minute and with advance notice, though in this country it’s a shortage of ground staff rather than pilots that’s largely to blame.

Today Heathrow Airport ordered airlines including British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Air France to ground dozens of flights, impacting more than 10,000 passeners.

The Independent has approached American Airlines for comment.

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