All United Airlines flights in the U.S. were grounded Wednesday morning due to "automation issues," the Federal Aviation Administration reported.
3,500 flights United flights are affected worldwide.
"Automation issues" are another way of saying there are problems with the back-end software and hardware United is using, according to the Verge. The current grounding affects "mainline" aircraft only, according to the FAA.
There's no word on when the computer problems will be fixed.
All #UnitedAirlines flights grounded due to technical issues http://t.co/HTU3HpWFEp pic.twitter.com/tgWKEzRmyT
— Ashton Edwards (@AshtonEdwards4) July 8, 2015
Passengers are tweeting about the chaos and lines at the airports.
In early June a software glitch grounded United aircraft for around 30 minutes, but the length of this grounding has already exceeded June's.
Pilot @united now taking questions from passengers press conference style on PA system abt computer outage. #UnitedAirlines #fail
— Betsy Fischer Martin (@BFischerMartin) July 8, 2015
Flight attendant advises downloading @united app for connection updates but is informed mid-sentence it's down too. #unitedcomputerfail
— Betsy Fischer Martin (@BFischerMartin) July 8, 2015
Now @united airlines pilot offering tours of the flight deck to bored passengers. "We don't have anything better to do" #unitedcomputerfail
— Betsy Fischer Martin (@BFischerMartin) July 8, 2015
Our @united airlines pilot on their global outage. "It's like someone pulled the plug on our computers - It's embarrassing, I apologize ."
— Betsy Fischer Martin (@BFischerMartin) July 8, 2015
Updated at 10 a.m.: FAA reports that United Airlines flights are no longer grounded. Passengers are re-boarding planes.
Updated at 10:30 a.m.: Passengers are reporting that the boarding pass scanning system is still not working, so agents are writing information out by hand.
When was the last time you saw hand-written tickets? @United goes old-school during grounding at #EWR @YahooTravel pic.twitter.com/rVqRmsL2Aa
— Laura Begley Bloom (@laurabegley) July 8, 2015
I don't think "network connectivity issue" does justice to what happened. "Massive global computer failure" perhaps? https://t.co/L5RFUT2MhG
— Betsy Fischer Martin (@BFischerMartin) July 8, 2015
Security lines at @DENAirport are as bad as I've ever seen. Plan ahead, folks, due to @united glitch. pic.twitter.com/jYIUVfLh7B
— Trevor Hughes (@TrevorHughes) July 8, 2015
Updated at 11:30 a.m.: "We are recovering from a network connectivity issue this morning and restoring regular flight operations," United Airlines said in a statement. "We will have a waiver available at united.com for customers who are able to change their flight plans."
WOW. Very long lines right now at @Dulles_Airport for @United. Video from @MeganMcGrath4. http://t.co/fQACig6NWohttps://t.co/5vQm7BVarw
— NBCWashington (@nbcwashington) July 8, 2015