Galileo down / Crashed United Airlines' computers

[Menlaan]

This happened to me tonight, and I didn't see it posted or on cnn.com. Basically, while I was in line to check-in from Denver today, all of United Airlines ticketing system crashed. They weren't able to issue tickets, check people in, or anything. Planes could still take off and land, but they had to resort to manual processes to get people on the plane. While I was there, the system was never brought back up, so it must have been down for at least 3 hours.

Anyone heard about this?

Menlaan

[Kramer]

that is not designed to make people feel safe and comfortable

[Phlegm]

From Associated Press:

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- About 200 United Airlines flights worldwide were delayed up to 90 minutes Tuesday night because of a computer glitch.

The airline's computer system controlling check-ins and reservations went down around 5 p.m. CST Tuesday, airline spokeswoman Jean Medina said.

The system was fixed about four hours later but caused about 200 flights to be delayed as airports had to check in passengers manually, spokesman Jeff Green said.

Medina said flights were delayed 60 to 90 minutes because of the problem. Some flights pushed back their takeoff times to allow passengers stuck in long lines to board, while other passengers had to reschedule flights, she said.

Green said United was investigating the cause of the glitch.

United, the nation's second-largest carrier, has about 3,400 daily flights worldwide. Its parent, UAL Corp., is based in Elk Grove Village, Illinois.

[labbats]

I work for American Eagle, but walking through Ohare in my uniform both yesterday and today, I was pulled aside often and asked what was going on from United passengers. It was all over the local Chicago news. Delayed 200 flight or something.

[Menlaan]

Yeah, it was a scary situation in Denver too. I'm glad it was nothing too serious. A bunch of airline computers crashing seemed like it could be something very bad.

Menlaan

[labbats]

It's not scary at all, just inconvenient. There was never an affect on the safety of the flights.

[Menlaan]

It was scary and inconvenient at the time. The passengers didn't know everything was fine when the system shut-down. In retrospect, it was simply inconvenient.

Menlaan