American, Southwest say reservation systems failed briefly befor - WKOW 27: Madison, WI Breaking News, Weather and Sports

DALLAS (WKOW) -- American Airlines and Southwest Airlines say customers encountered problems booking flights Tuesday because of a glitch in their reservations systems. Both airlines say the problem was fixed quickly.

Airline officials blamed Tuesday's glitch on Sabre Holding Corp., which provides reservations-systems technology to airlines.

Sabre confirmed that its customers experienced difficulties "for a short period." But a spokeswoman says "access has been restored and the system is back on line."

American Airlines says the outage lasted about 45 minutes and was fixed shortly after 11:00 a.m. CST. A spokesman says the outage affected all airlines and travel agencies that use Sabre, which was once part of American but later spun off into a separate company.

United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and US Airways say they use other technology providers and were not affected by the Sabre outage.