United Airlines flights grounded across the US due to ‘technology issue’

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop Wednesday evening, affecting United Airlines flights across the U.S.

The order impacted United flights in regional hubs across the country, including Denver, Newark, Houston, and San Francisco, the agency said.

“Due to a technology issue, we are holding United mainline flights at their departure airports,” United said in a statement. “We expect additional flight delays this evening as we work through this issue. Safety is our top priority, and we’ll work with our customers to get them to their destinations.”

Passengers complained on social media that they had been waiting on the tarmac at airports for more than two hours following the outage, with no sign of movement any time soon.

“We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused. We are aware of the system error and our teams are working to resolve this to have you on your way,” United’s social media account replied to stranded passengers on X.

One parent with small children said that they were waiting to board a nine-hour flight from Buenos Aires in Argentina to Houston.

“Still no news of this worldwide outage!” the person wrote on X. “We are here waiting here in Buenos Aires, Argentina! Kids tired and we’re ready to take a 9 hours flight to Houston to then take a connection flight!”

Another person said they had been waiting on a United plane for over two and a half hours.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated with new information.