Flight delayed? The coffee maker might be to blame

If you were recently stuck on a delayed American Airlines flight, the cause may have been a seemingly minor glitch: A broken coffee maker.

The airline, the dominant carrier at Philadelphia International Airport, is replacing many of its coffee makers because malfunctions were causing too many delays, Robert Isom, American's chief operating officer, said on a podcast for airline employees.

"We were having an inordinate amount of coffee maker problems," Isom said on the podcast.

When the airline examined why flights didn't depart on time, it found a large number of short delays caused by a specific type of coffee maker, he said.

Even such small delays can have a ripple effect, causing problems for "hundreds, if not thousands, of passengers," Isom told the New York Times. He declined to tell the newspaper precisely how many delays were caused by coffee makers and the U.S. Department of Transportation says it doesn't track delays with that level of detail.

When a coffee maker isn't working, maintenance crews must make sure there's not an electrical problem that could cause a fire. The non-functioning machine can often be replaced by a spare, according to the Times, but sometimes the flight takes off without coffee – after passengers have waited for mechanics to disable the machine.