United Flights No Longer Grounded After Computer Problems
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MIAMI (CBSMiami/AP) — United Airlines flights in U.S. are back in the air after being grounded Wednesday because of computer problems.
United, less than two hours later, requested the Federal Aviation Administration lift the ground stop order, FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford said. United cited "network connectivity" for the problems.
Steve Hall's flight from Houston was delayed a couple of hours.
"We got on the plane, they said there was a problem, asked us to get off the plane," Hall said, who waited about an hour.
Meagan Diaz said they sent her a message that her flight was delayed until. She had to switch her flight because of the technical glitches.
Those glitches had one of the world's largest airlines at a standstill.
Travelers in Los Angeles, as the airport is one of the airline's largest hubs, had to deal with lines out the door. It was the same in Chicago. Delays in South Florida, however, were minimal because there aren't many United flights from either MIA nor FLL.
Andrew Rios found out found out planes were stuck across the country after he and his family got to the airport.
"I don't know what's really going on. I got a call from my brother asking if we were going to get out today and I didn't understand what he meant by that," Rios told CBS4's Ted Scouten. "He said everything is shutdown nationwide."
Rios, who was trying to get on a flight Houston, ended up making it out of FLL.
Robbie Day didn't know there was a problem until Scouten told him. His flight was delayed about a half an hour.
"They said it's going to be delayed, they haven't said anything else," Day said.
Also, some people were left wondering about the United technical glitch since the headlines were also about computer problems at the New York Stock Exchange and the Wall Street Journal.
"I don't think it's a terrorist attack, but I think it's some kind of hacking. Somebody is trying to hack into everyone's information," said Geri Cohen.
It is the second time in two months that the carrier has been hit by major technical issues.
The Chicago company had halted all takeoffs in the U.S. on June 2 due to what the airline described as computer automation issues.
The Federal Aviation Administration used the same language in its notice about the outage Wednesday.
United suffered a series of computer problems in 2012 after switching to a passenger information computer system previously used by merger partner Continental Airlines.
In each case, hundreds of flights were delayed. A number of high-paying business travelers defected to other airlines and revenue dropped.
"We don't know everything behind this morning's issues yet, but today's incident underscores the sense that something is very wrong at United," said Gary Leff, co-founder of frequent-flier website MilePoint.
Shares of United Continental Holdings Inc. slid 2 percent to $53.08 in early morning trading.
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