United Airlines grounded flights across the U.S. and Canada for about 45 minutes on Friday morning after a huge system outage that saw the company's app and website go down for many users.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) website said the carrier had implemented a ground stop of all United aircraft and United sub-carriers across North America "due to airline request."
The issue was first reported before 7 a.m. ET.
The FAA said the ground stop for both countries began at 6:45 a.m. and was "due to computer issues." The ground stop was lifted at 7:30 a.m.
"This morning we experienced technical system issues that impacted our operations and have since been resolved," the airline said in a statement to Newsweek.
"All systems are now working normally and we are working diligently to get customers to their destinations."
United confirmed that the issue had been fixed at around 7.50 a.m.
The airline had posted a series of tweets in response to customer complaints, saying it was aware of the issue and trying to "resolve it as quickly as possible."
"Please try to log in again in an hour. We're sorry for the inconvenience," one tweet read.
Another United customer wrote on Twitter:"@united System down? Can't check bags but welcome to carryon? What about my wife's bag? Should I just leave her in @BHMAirport?"
Another wrote:"@united what is the the point of a travel ready center if your app won't even work? #unitedairlines #poorcustomerservice #dontflyunited."
The airline apologized for any inconvenience or frustration it had caused.
DownDetector, a website that tracks outages in real time, reported more than 200 instances of users unable to log in to their online accounts with the airline, according to Fox News.
Jacksonville International Airport tweeted that United was experiencing a system-wide IT issue. "Expect potential delays. Give yourself plenty of time if traveling to the airport and continue to check flight status with United," the post read.
It was unclear how many delays were caused, or if there were any cancellations related to the outage.
On Thursday, United CEO Scott Kirby revealed that the airline had banned nearly 1,000 customers over the course of the pandemic, for breaking mask rules or unruly behavior.
In an interview with CNN's New Day, Kirby said the airline had instructed flight attendants to hand out cards to maskless passengers that read: "You're just going to be banned from flying United Airlines if you don't put [a mask] on." The executive said it had been an effective way to avoid putting flight attendants in danger.
Update 9/17/21, 10:25 a.m. ET: This article was updated to report that the system outage has been resolved.
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