United Airlines flights delayed nationwide due to tech issue
More than 200 United Airlines flights were delayed Wednesday at O'Hare International Airport, and more than 1,000 across the U.S., as a "technology issue" caused a ground stop at several major airports.
An outage in United's "Unimatic" system, which houses flight information, such as weight, balance and flight tracking, occurred about 5:10 p.m., leading the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a ground stop for all United Airlines flights around 6:30 p.m., according to the company and the FAA.
The issue was resolved "within a few hours" but residual delays continued throughout Wednesday night, the company said.
"We are working with customers to get them to their destinations after a technology disruption on Wednesday evening. The underlying technology issue has been resolved, and, while we expect residual delays, our team is working to restore our normal operations," a United Airlines spokesperson said in a statement.
More than 220 United flights were delayed at O'Hare, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware. Around 1,000 United flights were delayed across the country, as ground stops were also issued at airports in Denver, Houston, Newark, New Jersey, and San Francisco, according to the FAA and FlightAware.
The ground stop at O'Hare was lifted later Wednesday night, but United Airlines flights out of the airport were averaging two hour delays, according to the FAA.
United Airlines was accommodating some customers' expenses, such as for hotel stays, "when applicable," the company said.
The spokesperson also confirmed the technology issue was not related to a cybersecurity breach.