United Airlines’ computer systems went down Wednesday morning — across the U.S. — causing a travel nightmare domino effect around the world. Systems slowly came back online near 10 a.m., when passengers started boarding some jets.
“We experienced a network connectivity issue. We are working to resolve and apologize for any inconvenience,” the jetliner giant tweeted.
An FAA formal order halting all new take offs went into effect at 8:26 a.m.; it was lifted at 9:47 a.m.
Agents were unable to check in passengers and boarding pass kiosks went down.
At one point, agents even start hand-writing tickets.
The repercussions will last days because of how jammed flights are, all the missed connections and other issues, experts say. In all, about 100 flights were grounded; the number may not seem small but the ripple effects are much greater.
We know how important your travel plans are to you, and we’re sorry for today’s disruptions.
https://t.co/kHGSiWiFv0
— United (@united) July 8, 2015
“They have to rebuild their entire schedule and worry about their crews’ hours of service,” former NTSB Mark Rosenker told CBSN.
This is the second time in five weeks that Unitedwas grounded for technical reasons.On June 2, it experienced “automation issues.” CNN reported that a problematic router was to blame.
“An issue with a router degraded network connectivity for various applications, causing this morning’s operational disruption,” United said, according to the network. “We fixed the router issue, which is enabling us to restore normal functions” A United senior vice president posted a video on Twitter apologizing for the SNAFU.
John A. Oswald is editor-at-large at Metro and can be found on Twitter@nyc_oz.
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United: “An issue with a router degraded network connectivity for various applications, causing this morning’s operational disruption”
— Ram Ramgopal (@RamCNN) July 8, 2015
United (more): “We fixed the router issue, which is enabling us to restore normal functions”
— Ram Ramgopal (@RamCNN) July 8, 2015
PROGRESS?? #UnitedAirlines @NBCNews pic.twitter.com/3ZbW1eiTaC
— Jeff Rossen (@jeffrossen) July 8, 2015
Did #UnitedAirlines try CTRL ALT Delete?
— Ellen Tailor (@EllenTailor) July 8, 2015
We experienced a network connectivity issue. We are working to resolve and apologize for any inconvenience.
— United (@united) July 8, 2015
