Rosalind Evans
United Airlines experienced a nationwide halt in departures due to a software update glitch, causing a significant disturbance on an already hectic travel day.
The inability of United crews to communicate with airline dispatchers through the usual channels was confirmed by federal authorities.
In an official statement, United Airlines explained, “A recent software update led to widespread disruptions in our tech systems.” They were quick to clarify that this wasn’t related to any cybersecurity concerns.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), responsible for overseeing the nation’s airspace, stated that the hold on departures was specifically requested by United. This issue was isolated to United and its affiliate airlines.
Importantly, the grounding only impacted departures. Planes that were already airborne continued without interruptions and the ground stop was in effect for just over an hour.
By late Tuesday afternoon on the East Coast, United had surprisingly cancelled merely seven flights. This figure is considerably lower than their Labor Day weekend daily average, which stood at around 16 cancellations, as per FlightAware data.
However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Over 350 of United’s flights faced delays, amounting to 13% of their daily operations. This was considerably higher than the delays faced by competitors like American, Delta, and Southwest, especially considering the influx of holiday travellers.
For context, Southwest Airlines had a somewhat comparable system outage in April. This resulted in a hold on all departing flights for around an hour and subsequently led to over 2,000 flights running late.
Earlier in January, the FAA had its own issues which resulted in a brief stop to all U.S. departures. The root of the problem was traced back to a contractor, who inadvertently deleted files during a sync process between the primary alert system and its backup.
Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, who hasn’t shied away from critiquing airlines for their various issues over the past year, commented that the FAA was in the process of understanding the full scope and reasons for the disruption. He assured that steps would be taken to ensure United meets its responsibilities to the affected passengers. It’s noteworthy that the FAA operates under Buttigieg’s Department of Transportation.
In light of the grounding incident, the stock price for Chicago’s United Airlines Holdings Inc. dropped, closing at a 2.5% decline.
In an era where technological hiccups can have cascading effects on tightly integrated systems like air travel, it is crucial for airlines and authorities to swiftly address and rectify issues. While United Airlines managed to mitigate large-scale cancellations, the delays experienced underscore the vulnerability of modern aviation systems to software glitches. It serves as a reminder to the industry of the need for robust, fail-safe mechanisms and prompt communication to passengers in the event of disruptions.
