United Airlines warned of ongoing delays Thursday after more than 1,000 flights were delayed overnight at major US airports — including New Jersey’s problem-plagued Newark — when a tech glitch sparked travel chaos for several hours.
The airline’s system that calculates weight and balance and tracks flight times went down just before 6:15 p.m. — affecting jets at a slew of main airports, according to the FAA and United.
An alert on the FAA’s website said all United flights destined for Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport were being halted at their departing airports.
Flights to United hubs in New Jersey, Denver, Houston and San Francisco airports also were affected.
Just over 1,000 United planes – or 35% of flights — were delayed Wednesday and another 6% were canceled, according to the FlightAware tracking site.
The outage was resolved shortly after 10 p.m. but the airlines warned some service disruptions and “residual delays” would continue into Thursday.
As of 7 a.m. Thursday, 137 United flights were delayed across the country.
“The underlying technology issue has been resolved, and, while we expect residual delays, our team is working to restore our normal operations,” United said in a statement hours after the tech outage.
“Safety is our top priority, and we’ll work with our customers to get them to their destinations.”
It wasn’t immediately clear what sparked the system outage.
The Chicago-based airline said it wasn’t tied to recent concerns about airline industry cybersecurity.
Meanwhile, United apologized for the glitch on social media and said in some cases it would pay for hotel and other expenses incurred by travelers because of the delays.
“Hey there, we apologize for the travel disruption today,” the airline told a customer on the social platform X. “Our teams are working to resolve the outage as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience.”
The FAA told The Post that United had requested the ground stop order.
“We’re aware United experienced a technology issue disrupting their operations. Some delays may continue as they work through the recovery process,” the agency said in a statement.
“We’ve offered full support to help address their flight backlog and remain in close contact with United,” the agency said.
With Post wires
