United Airlines Suffers Major Computer System Outage, Disrupts Hundreds of Flights
United Airlines experienced widespread disruption on Wednesday evening due to a significant computer system failure.
In a statement, the airline reported that the underlying technological issue had been rectified; however, residual delays are anticipated as normal operations are restored.
The technical glitch resulted in hundreds of United flights being held at their departure airports for several hours. At the airline’s behest, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued ground stops for all United flights at major hubs such as Chicago, Houston, Denver, Newark, NJ, and San Francisco, with exceptions made for smaller regional jets.
Frustrated passengers took to social media to express their dissatisfaction, reporting delays, cancellations, and extended wait times due to paralyzed planes at gates or on the tarmac. Arriving travelers also faced disrupted schedules as immobilized United aircraft blocked arrival gates.
Some jets, which had been awaiting resolution of the problems before takeoff, eventually returned to their gates for passengers to deboard. Flights already in the air were not affected by the outage.
The system failure commenced shortly after 6 p.m. ET and was resolved within a few hours, according to United. Despite this, residual delays were expected to continue into Wednesday night.
United’s incident is the latest in a series of major airline-wide computer malfunctions. In 2022, Southwest Airlines encountered similar difficulties during the busy Christmas holiday travel period. A severe winter storm caused widespread travel disruptions across the U.S., resulting in thousands of flight cancellations. While most airlines recovered swiftly, Southwest did not. Ultimately, Southwest canceled 16,900 flights, leaving over 2 million passengers stranded.
Last summer, Delta Air Lines also encountered problems when thousands of flights were canceled following a major system outage triggered by a faulty software update.