FAA to investigate United computer problem that delayed thousands

The FAA will look into a United Airlines computer meltdown that grounded flights Wednesday morning, causing delays and cancellations and forcing passengers to sit in limbo on airport taxiways.

"It was not a pleasant experience," said Ruth Coppola, who ended her red-eye flight from Alaska to O'Hare International Airport by waiting 90 minutes in a plane for a gate.

"Our aviation system must work better than this for airline passengers," said Congressman Dan Lipinski, a Western Springs Democrat who sits on the House Transportation Committee. The glitch comes on the heels of a similar malfunction in early June.

"I look forward to receiving more information about this matter once the full investigation is complete."

FAA officials said the agency will follow up with United Airlines on the problem.

"An issue with a router degraded network connectivity for various applications," United spokesman Charles Hobart said. "This was a technical issue that impacted our ability to communicate data."

Routers essentially send Internet traffic to and from different systems. When one goes down, traffic has to be rerouted, which takes time.

The ground stop lasted from 7 a.m. to 8:50 a.m. Flights were delayed up to two hours at O'Hare Wednesday morning and averaging 45 minutes late by afternoon.

Across the U.S., 1,162 United and United Express flights were delayed and 61 canceled.

Many travelers landing at O'Hare found themselves cooped up in planes until gates occupied by grounded aircraft were freed.

Coppola's daughter, Valerie Gabrione of Naperville, alternated between checking her smartphone and flight boards as she searched for her parents.

"Hopefully they'll look on the brighter side of things, but no one likes to sit at the airport," she said

When the couple emerged around 10 a.m. in the baggage area after landing an hour and a half earlier, Coppola was parched. "I've had nothing to drink but a can of ginger ale (after takeoff)," she said.

Given that there were babies and young children on the flight, the airline should have provided more information and offered water at least, Coppola said.

The ground stop delayed more than 180 flights into and out of O'Hare and canceled 15, FlightStats website reported.

Larry Collins, of Lake Barrington, was due to take off at 7:15 a.m. but was pulled off his plane 15 minutes later.

He waited with hundreds of others trying to switch flights.

"I'm not irritated. I like to believe most things in life can be made better with an extra cup of coffee," Collins said. "Apparently, other people felt the same because there was an extra long line of people at Starbucks."

Kadye Brown of Orlando, Florida, arrived at O'Hare at 8:23 a.m. and lingered on a taxiway for an hour. The manager at Cooper's Hawk Winery and Restaurants, in town for business and pleasure, said passengers kept their cool.

"Everyone was really tired and there was one crying baby, but everyone was very humane," she said.

The Jenkins family of Elgin learned their flight to Los Angeles would be two hours late but took it in stride.

"It's not going to be that bad," Sam Jenkins, 14, said.

Kevin Marks was also headed to Los Angeles. His plane was just 15 minutes late meaning he'd have plenty of time to connect with a flight to New Zealand, a relief to the 19-year-old and his mother, Lenoir.

"I'm not worried," Lenoir Marks said.

United experienced another technical debacle and halted takeoffs June 2 as a result of technical problems with the flight-dispatching system.

The carrier was buffeted by a series of commuter outages in 2012 after switching to a passenger-information system used by merger partner Continental Airlines.

In each case, hundreds of flights were delayed. A number of high-paying business travelers defected to other airlines and revenue dropped.

"We don't know everything behind this morning's issues yet, but today's incident underscores the sense that something is very wrong at United," said Gary Leff, co-founder of frequent-flier website MilePoint.

United promised to waive fees for changing flights and apologized to passengers Wednesday.

Shares of Continental Holdings Inc. declined 76 cents to $53.55 in early morning trading.

• Daily Herald staff writer Lee Filas and The Associated Press contributed to this story.