United Airlines temporarily grounded flights across the country Tuesday because of a “systemwide technology issue,” the airline said in a statement.
By 11 a.m., the company said it had identified “a fix for the technology issue” and flights had resumed.
“We’re working with impacted customers to help them reach their destinations as soon as possible,” United said.
It was not immediately clear what caused the outage or what the repair was. United did not immediately respond to additional questions about the matter.
United delayed 330 flights by midday, about 12% of its routes for the day, and canceled seven more, according to FlightAware, a real-time flight tracking website. It made up about 19% of the roughly 1,700 total flights delayed in the United States.
The ground stop was reported before 10:30 a.m. Tuesday when United announced that a technical issue was disrupting its departures across the country.
“We are experiencing a systemwide technology issue and are holding all aircraft at their departure airports,” United said in a statement. “Flights that are already airborne are continuing to their destination as planned. We’re currently investigating and will share more information as it becomes available.”
The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that United asked the agency to pause the airline’s departures nationwide. According to the Air Traffic Control System Command Center, the company reported an “equipment outage.”
The FAA directed all additional questions to United.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he was on a cross-country United flight Tuesday morning when the outage was reported. Swalwell is the ranking Democrat on the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Subcommittee and said he would investigate the issue.
“As top Dem on House Cyber Subcommittee I will work to get more information to my constituents on this ground stop and whether it reflects a cyber threat. Standby,” he wrote.
This is a developing story.
