United Airlines Holdings Inc. halted all flights temporarily due to an unspecified equipment outage on Tuesday, citing a systemwide technology issue.
Although the airline didn’t specify what system was affected, United later stated to have identified a fix for the issue. United asked the Federal Aviation Administration to hold flights across the country until 2 pm, according to an FAA air traffic control advisory.
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.@united asked the FAA to pause the airline’s departures nationwide. For more information, contact United regarding its request and monitor https://t.co/smgdqJN3td for updates.
— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) September 5, 2023
The airline took to X, formerly Twitter, to share the issue with its audience, apologizing for the inconvenience and assuring customers that they were working to fix the problem. “We are experiencing a systemwide technology issue and are holding all aircraft at their departure airports,” United Airlines tweeted. “Flights that are already airborne are continuing to their destination as planned. We will share more information as it becomes available.”
We are experiencing a systemwide technology issue and are holding all aircraft at their departure airports. Flights that are already airborne are continuing to their destination as planned. We will share more information as it becomes available. Thank you for your patience as we…
— United Airlines (@united) September 5, 2023
More than 10,000 flights have been delayed so far and 1,300 canceled, according to FlightAware, in the first nation grounding of flights in about two decades. According to Reuters, industry officials compared the grounding to what occurred after the terror attacks on September 11, 2001.
Passengers affected by the halt from flights in the Denver, San Francisco, Kansas City, Houston, Dallas and Washington D.C. area went on social media to share their experiences around 12:30 pm, with one user writing that they had been on the “tiniest hot plane” all day.
According to Bloomberg, United shares dropped as much as 4.7 percent to trade down 3.2 percent to $48.15 as of 2:11 pm in New York.
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