US: United Airlines Flights Briefly Grounded Due To Technical Issue; Thousands Of Passengers Affected

Hundreds of United Airlines flights were grounded on Wednesday evening (local time) due to a technical issue. The issue was reportedly resolved within an hour. However, the aircraft carrier warned of delays.

"The underlying technology issue has been resolved, and, while we expect residual delays, our team is working to restore our normal operations," the airline said in a statement.

The technical glitch affected operations at major US airports, including Chicago, Denver, Houston and Newark, as per the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s website. The airline has not provided details about the nature of the technical issue faced by the airline. Thousands of passengers across the major airports faced inconvenience.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed that the grounding was initiated by United Airlines. It shared an official statement on social media: "United Airlines requested the FAA to pause its departures nationwide while they addressed a technology issue. The FAA is monitoring the situation closely."

Notably, the airline had suffered an outage of its weight calculation system, reported CNBC, citing sources. At Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), long queues of frustrated passengers were reported. "We apologise for the disruption and thank customers for their patience," the airline said in a social media post.

The outage severely impacted United's global network as well. Flights from Newark and Chicago to Delhi and Mumbai were delayed by several hours, disrupting onward connections for passengers from cities including Houston, reported The Associated Press. Routes to Frankfurt, London, Sao Paulo and Panama City also faced delays.

The United's flights were grounded weeks after Alaska Airlines faced similar issue. For the unversed, Alaska Airlines reportedly grounded its flights for several hours last month due to an IT outage.