Temporary Equipment Outage Triggers United Ground Stop

[Courtesy: United Airlines]

United Airlines flights across the nation were delayed on Tuesday morning when the legacy carrier requested the FAA to pause departures nationwide because of a temporary equipment outage.

The FAA confirmed the ground stop request in an email to FLYING.

According to a media representative from United, the departure delays did not last very long as it "identified a fix for the technology issue" and were able to resume flights a short time later.

"We’re working with impacted customers to help them reach their destinations as soon as possible," United said in the email.

Tuesday afternoon, the airline said a software update triggered the one-hour pause.

"Earlier today a software update caused a widespread slowdown in United's technology systems," it said in a statement. "We briefly held aircraft at their destination airports and resumed normal operations around 12:45 p.m. CT. Our teams are working to get customers to their destinations as soon as possible."

The ground stop affected aircraft in the U.S. and Canada. Aircraft that were already airborne were allowed to continue to their destinations.

equipment outage FAA United Airlines

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Meg Godlewski has been an aviation journalist for more than 24 years and a CFI for more than 20 years. If she is not flying or teaching aviation, she is writing about it. Meg is a founding member of the Pilot Proficiency Center at EAA AirVenture and excels at the application of simulation technology to flatten the learning curve. Follow Meg on Twitter @2Lewski.