United Airlines Flight Delays Caused By Major Computer System Meltdown

Thousands of passengers were affected.
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United Airlines suffered a major “systems issue” this week which caused a huge number of flights to be delayed and thousands of passengers sat waiting in airports around the world.

Reports say more than 60 flights were delayed although that number could have increased.

We're aware of an issue with our system & are working to resolve it. We'll update as we learn more. We apologize for the inconvenience.

— United (@united) October 14, 2016

Flights were reportedly delayed by up to six hours causing many passengers to turn to Twitter to vent their frustrations.

@united never again am I flying w this airline not honest realistic it's 4am I've been in the same airport for last 6 hrs pic.twitter.com/GCR74txbkK

— tipactim (@tipactim) October 14, 2016

@united Don't you think you should have said something earlier? People have been stuck on planes for over 2 hours with no updates.

— Celise Nakakura (@KalopaMom) October 14, 2016

@united serious question. How are you still in business????????

— Amy Zandy (@AmyZandy) October 14, 2016

It is reportedly the third major computer malfunction to hit United Continental Holdings in the last few months and has raised concerns over the levels of cybersecurity being employed by airlines.

At around 3am Friday morning ET United tweeted that it had finally resolved the issue.

As of 3 a.m. ET the system issue has been resolved. Any delayed flights are resuming and we apologize again for the inconvenience.

— United (@united) October 14, 2016

Airlines are almost entirely dependent on computer systems to operate, from local air traffic control systems to onboard flight computers which control the plane and communicate to airports and planes around it.

Just one major malfunction in any of these systems can have a catastrophic knock-on effect to the smooth running of an airport or airline.

According to the Mail, United’s latest malfunction was caused by an error in the weight management system.

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