Most UAL Traffic Was Disrupted For Much Of The Morning

A glitch in United Airlines check-in computers at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport made it so that most of United's planes could not leave the airport for much of Thursday morning. Rather than "On Time" or "Delayed", the departure boards mostly read "Computer Failure."

Though the computers were back up and running before 10:00 am, the damage had been done.

Television station CBS2 in Chicago reports that at one point there were as many as 1000 people in line as United's workers tried to check passengers in manually. Planes were lined up at the gates and on the tarmac as both arriving and departing flights were delayed. A ground stop for United flights was issued for a time, as airplanes were still arriving but few were able to depart.

United issued travel waivers to passengers, which would allow them to re-schedule their flights without paying additional fees. Since O'Hare is a United hub, the Chicago delays caused problems to ripple out to other airports served by the airlines.

Chicago Aviation Authorities said told the television station they don't know how many flights were effected.

FMI: www.ual.com