Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Just in time for the mad rush of travelers headed out for the 4th of July weekend, a computer problem made it so United Airlines flights could not leave O'Hare International Airport for much of Thursday morning.

As CBS 2's Ed Curran reports, the computers were back up and running by about 9:45 a.m., but by then the damage was done.

For most of the morning, one glance at the departure board told you all was not well at United. Rather than "on time," or "delayed," many flight status messages read "computer failure."

Passengers arriving at O'Hare thought the long lines were because of holiday travel. The seemingly endless lines were actually the result of a computer glitch, which started at 1:30 a.m., and meant for a time all passengers had to be checked in manually.

At the peak of the problem, at least 1,000 passengers stood in slow-moving lines in the O'Hare terminal, and planes lined up on the airport's tarmac as new flights arrived and departing flights were held back.

Many passengers didn't have a clue there was anything wrong until they arrived at the terminal.

"I'm wondering why we have all these long lines, and that every single computer check-in is closed," said Mary Hartnett.

Hartnett didn't like the answer. But Mark Majewski, a Las Vegas-bound frequent flyer, took it all in stride after hearing it on TV.

"I heard on your TV station this morning before I left the hotel to come here, that there was some confusion," Majewski said, adding that he would be "about 4 or 5 hours late, but still, nonetheless, we'll be home sometime today."

Nick Forbes got in line at 7 a.m.

"Waited for about an hour and a half, got up there, and they told me the flight's closed," he said.

The computer system kept coming up and going down. Agents got in touch with other airports, and checked people in by hand, or in some instances, with wireless laptops. They also advised passengers to check in at home. 

But for a while, even those who succeeded in checking in weren't getting very far. A ground stop program was put into effect for United flights, and none of them left the airport. Flights still arrived.

By around 9:45 a.m., the computers were running again, slowly easing long lines of passengers. It was not clear whether all of the computers were functioning again, but some ticket agents were able to check in passengers, and the self check-in kiosks were working. 

The airline said a "travel waiver" has been issued for all flights out of Chicago on Thursday, allowing travelers to reschedule flights online without being charged any additional fee.

United knows the impression left on more than a thousand of its customers wasn't good.

"United offers sincere apologies for any of our customers that were inconvenienced," said United spokesperson Cindy Szadokierski.

The airline recommended travelers check in on united.com, then use the Web site to check flight information.

Chicago Department of Aviation spokeswoman Karen Pride said she doesn't know how many flights were affected.

O'Hare is a United hub, and the problems have been causing delays at other U.S. airports.

"We had our fallback procedures and our manual processes and that worked," Szadokierski said.

United workers at other airports were also enlisted to check in flyers who then were given handwritten boarding passes at O'Hare.

About the only good news about this computer malfunction is that it wasn't throughout the entire United system. This problem was only at O'Hare. Back in 2007 that wasn't the case. On June 20, 2007, a similar glitch grounded hundreds of United flights for at least two hours across the country.

That day, the computers that record a plane's weight, balance and fuel failed. United Airlines planes that had just arrived at O'Hare were unable to move off the tarmac because other United jets were stuck at gate after gate, unable to leave Chicago.

It took about two hours to resolve the 2007 incident.

CBS 2's Ed Curran, Mike Puccinelli and Kris Habermehl, the Associated Press and the STNG Wire contributed to this report.

(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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