A weight and balance computer system malfunction led to a nationwide ground stop for United Airlines flights on Wednesday night, causing widespread delays and cancellations.
“Due to a technology issue, we are holding United mainline flights at their departure airports,” the airline said in a statement. “We expect additional flight delays this evening as we work through this issue. Safety is our top priority, and we’ll work with our customers to get them to their destinations.”
United said the issue began shortly after 6 p.m. ET and was resolved within a few hours—noting that the technical issue was not related to a cyberattack.
The disruption affected several major hubs, with full ground stops issued at airports including Chicago, Denver, Houston, Newark, and San Francisco. As of Thursday morning, more than 1,400 flights had been impacted, according to FlightAware data.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy acknowledged the outage as an isolated incident to United and not related to the broader national air traffic control system. The FAA is working closely with United and has offered support to help resolve the flight backlog.
0 replies