UA grounds all domestic mainline flights due to IT issues on Jan 22, 2017

[FWAAA]

In yet another IT meltdown that has grounded major airlines, UA has announced a ground stop of all domestic mainline flights on Sunday night, Jan 22:

"We have issued a ground stop for all domestic mainline flights due to an IT issue," King said. "We are working as quickly as possible to resolve this issue and get our customers to their final destinations. We apologize for the inconvenience to our customers."

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/22/travel/united-grounds-domestic-flights-because-of-it-issue/

The CNN article recounts several of the recent computer meltdowns that have caused havoc at major airlines, including UA, DL, WN and BA. IIRC, AA had an IT issue a while back that grounded flights, but not mentioned in the article.

 

[FWAAA]

And an hour after it began, the ground stop has been lifted:

"The ground stop has been lifted," the airline announced on Twitter. "We're working to get flights on their way. We apologize for the inconvenience to our customers."

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/22/travel/united-grounds-domestic-flights-because-of-it-issue/

 

[jimntx]

Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean there aren't some people out to get me. I can't help but think that given the fact that every major U.S. airline has been hit along with the recent hacking incidents involving the Russians (or not depending on who you prefer to listen to) leads me to think that there's a connection here. I mean, every major U.S. airline???

 

[swamt]

Maybe not just the Russians. Don't put it past the terrorist trying to do something as well. OR could it really just be too much information (loads) on the computer systems. Just thinking out loud here.

 

[swamt]

Just announced on fox news that it had nothing to do with hacking.

 

[jimntx]

A not unexpected announcement. I spent over 20 years in the I.T. field. No company--particularly a publicly-held corporation--wants the world to know that there are holes in their computer security systems. The truth is that there is no such thing as an unhackable computer. It may take some time. It may not be easy, but all security systems have weaknesses. The problem is the weaknesses are found when the system gets hacked.

You know the argument in logic that you can not prove a negative. Well, there is no way to prove in advance that every possible hacking route into a computer has been determined and protected against. The hacking event is what tells the security guys that there is work to be done.

 

[eolesen]

Someone I know in Chicago says it was a slow running server which ultimately fed the datalink between UA and ARINC.

250 flights delayed, 12 canceled, and around 80 minutes from start to end. Pales in comparison to the outages at WN and DL which lasted for days.

Not a hack by any means.