It offered to waive change fees for anyone who wished to reschedule their flight rather than deal with the delays.
Advertisement
The White House also said that there are no signs of malicious intent and spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama has been briefed on both the NYSE and United issues.
In order to fly the friendly skies, United Airlines passengers first had to experience long lines on the grumpy ground.
Three flights scheduled to depart the airport at 6:45 a.m. and headed to Chicago, Newark, New Jersey and Phoenix were delayed until 10:30 a.m. because of the error.
United Airlines said on Wednesday it was restoring operations after all its flights were grounded for about two hours due to computer problems.
The problem also forced staff to hand write tickets at multiple airports with United saying that almost 4,900 flights were affected worldwide.
The nation’s second-biggest airline had its second major computer issue in the last five weeks.
The problems were the latest malfunction for United since the carrier switched to the computer systems used by merger partner Continental Airlines in 2012.
A computer glitch is being blamed for disrupting United Airlines flights around the country. “We are working to resolve and apologize for any inconvenience”. About 3,500 flights were affected, MSNBC reported.
Passengers on Wednesday afternoon and evening flights felt little delay.
“How could a router bring down one of the world’s largest airlines?” asked Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst at Atmosphere Research Group, who said it appeared that United lacked enough redundancy in its technology systems.
“The next time you book a flight you probably will remember it but you’re going to most likely look for the cheapest fare or the best connection”. A number of high-paying business travelers defected to other airlines and revenue dropped.
Shares of United Continental Holdings Inc. declined 76 cents to $53.55 in early morning trading.
Advertisement
“An issue with a (computer) router degraded network connectivity for various applications, causing this morning’s operational disruption”, United said in a statement.
