United Airlines grounded all flights out of the US and Canada for the second time in a month amid growing safety concerns.
America’s biggest airline asked the Federal Aviation Authority to issue a ground stop due to an unspecified technological issue.
All flights were grounded for 36 minutes. United told the Daily Mail it ‘experienced a brief connectivity issue just before midnight Central time on Tuesday’.
The airline — which operates 4,000 to 5,000 flights per day — said it has ‘since resumed normal operations’.
It marks the second time in a month that the US operator has asked for a halt to departures over technical glitches.
United flights were also brought to a stop in August at several busy US airports including Newark, Denver, Houston and Chicago.
The airline told the Daily Mail that this week’s incident was ‘unrelated to a technology disruption in August’ or ‘any cybersecurity threat’.
United Airlines has grounded all flights out of the US and Canada for a second time in a month amid growing safety concerns
The ground stop caused chaos for passengers at airports across the United States
‘Due to a technology issue, we are holding United mainline flights at their departure airports,’ United said in a statement about the August incident issued at the time.
‘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.’
According to data from FlightAware, 1071 United Airlines flights were delayed and 67 were canceled.
The airline told Daily Mail that the technology issue was not a cyber attack on this occasion either, as it cited a problem with the ‘weight and balance computer system.’
That grounding did not appear to affect planes that had already set off, ABC’s Sam Sweeney reported. Those aircraft continued to their destinations as planned.
This is a breaking news story with updates to follow.
