It’s a situation United Airlines passengers were experiencing in full on Wednesday night. The airline took the unusual step of applying a ground stop to its mainline flights across several different departure airports. As you know, the disruption caused serious impacts across the country, including key nodes in Chicago, Denver, Houston, San Francisco, and New Jersey.
The issues started much earlier in the day, resulting in a domino effect of stranding passengers on tarmacs and causing understandable frustration from travelers. Jessica Jeffers sat on a plane in Denver for two excruciating hours, wishing to get to Newark, New Jersey. She wasn’t shy about her disappointment with the state of affairs.
“It’s been pretty rough over here,” – Jessica Jeffers
During the first day of the ground stop, thousands of passengers expressed their frustrations on social media. They shared their stories about being marooned with no information on the status of their flights. Those disruptions led to a lot of questions about how timely and accurate an airline’s communication was during the technical failure.
United Airlines reported that around 22:00 EDT on Wednesday, operations resumed and flights were no longer grounded. The company admitted that residual delays would be unavoidable as they returned to normal operations. The situation remained chaotic, with ongoing disruptions affecting passengers across the network.
In a statement regarding the incident, United Airlines clarified, “The underlying technology issue has been resolved, and while we expect residual delays, our team is working to restore our normal operations.”
As of Thursday morning, at approximately 02:00 GMT, the airline confirmed that all flights were cleared to resume. Nevertheless, many passengers continued to wait for news about their delayed flights as the effects of the ground stop lingered.
Air travelers who may be affected by the ongoing situation are advised to confirm their flight status. United Airlines has been making great strides toward stabilizing operations since the technical glitch.