A “technology issue” that halted United Airlines mainline flights out of departure airports Wednesday night has been resolved, the airline told CNN.
“We are working with customers to get them to their destinations after a technology disruption on Wednesday evening,” a United Airlines spokesperson told CNN. “The underlying technology issue has been resolved and while we expect residual delays, our team is working to restore our normal operations.”
The outage began at 6:12 p.m. ET and was resolved within a few hours, although residual delays continued into Wednesday night, the airline said. About 31% of the carrier’s flights were delayed and 1% had been canceled as of 9:45 p.m. ET, according to flight data tracker FlightAware.
United Airlines said that the outage was unrelated to recent cybersecurity concerns in the airline industry.
The Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged the disruption, saying, “We’re aware United experienced a technology issue disrupting their operations. Some delays may continue as they work through the recovery process.” The FAA is helping address United’s “flight backlog and remain in close contact with United.”
Passenger Angela Jeffers, whose flight from Nashville to Denver was delayed two hours on Wednesday, said the pilot told passengers about the system outage.
“We’re missing some numbers we need to take off so we can’t take off yet and don’t have a time estimate of when we’ll be able to,” she recalled the pilot telling passengers.
Passengers seeks updates on their delayed flight at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, Wednesday, Aug. 6, in Kenner, Louisiana. – Jack Brook/AP
She told CNN via text that passengers were given an update around 9:30 p.m. ET that some flights had begun boarding, but due to traffic, not all could. United offered to pay for a hotel and flight for her tomorrow, since her flight hadn’t boarded, Jeffers said.
Her sister Jessica Jeffers was also coincidentally impacted by the disruption Wednesday night, but at a Denver airport. She also told CNN she had been stuck for two hours.
“It’s been pretty rough over here,” Jessica Jeffers told CNN in a text around 9 p.m. ET. “I have been stuck for about two hours on a plane in Denver waiting to go to Newark; with us just now having the option to either deboard or stay on and wait with no direction about what’s going on. The air conditioning has been running really low so we have been essentially baking in here for hours.”
Airports in Chicago, Denver, Newark, Houston and San Francisco were impacted, according to the Federal Aviation Administration system status, which showed ground stops requested by United at about 7:30 p.m. ET.
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s Jillian Sykes, Pete Muntean and Hanna Park contributed to this report.
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