United Airlines outage that caused ground stops across the U.S. is resolved

A “technology issue” that prompted a United Airlines ground stop at major airports has been resolved, the airline said Wednesday night.

United said it was working with customers to get them to their destinations following the disruption. Residual delays are expected.

“Our team is working to restore our normal operations,” the airline said.

The outage had prompted ground stops across the country, including at major airport hubs in Chicago, San Francisco, Houston and Newark, New Jersey. The stops were lifted late Wednesday.

The airline said in a statement earlier that it was facing a “technology issue,” causing mainline flights to be held at their origin airports.

It was not clear what the technology issue was or what caused it.

Flights that were already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations.

The outage did not affect flights on United’s regional airlines.

“We expect additional flight delays this evening as we work through this issue,” United said in an earlier statement. “Safety is our top priority, and we’ll work with our customers to get them to their destinations.”

Responding to frustrated flyers who reached out on social media earlier in the evening, United said it was aware of the system issue and was working to resolve it as soon as possible.

United had the most delays of any domestic airline Wednesday, according to tracking statistics from FlightAware.com. It was not clear whether the listed number of delays included the ground-stopped flights.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X that he has been briefed by United CEO Scott Kirby about the “internal tech outage.”

“The issue was specific to United’s operations, and is unrelated to the broader air traffic control system,” Duffy said.

He said that the Transportation Department has offered “full support to help them clear up the flight backlog” and that the Federal Aviation Administration is in contact with the airline’s operations team.

“We’ve offered full support to help address their flight backlog and remain in close contact with United,” the FAA said.