CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - The global computer outage delayed thousands of passengers trying to fly out of O’Hare Airport Friday and sent others looking for alternative plans after airlines canceled more than 230 flights.
United Airlines said it paused all departures overnight after the outage affected systems it uses to calculate aircraft weight, customer check-in and call centers’ phones.
Many people who WBBM talked to didn’t know about any outage until they headed to the airport.
Jim and Jennifer Robson of Springfield started getting texts about outages from United Airlines at around 2 a.m. for their flight to Florida.
Regina Lemmons from Austin on the West Side had her boarding pass for her flight on her phone but it wasn't working when she got here to Terminal 1.
“It wouldn’t recognize our passport, so then we were directed to go to additional service, which we did, and they did everything there, everything had to be done manually,” Lemmons said.
She was in good spirits as she hopefully heads off on vacation.
WBBM found one man waiting a rideshare back to go back home to Arlington Heights after his United flight to Philadelphia was delayed and then canceled.
“We’re going to a wedding, kind of a timed event we need to get to,” he said. “We’re just going to try and rebook on a different airline, but we’re getting out of here because it’s a disaster.”
Another traveler, Noreen, was expecting to fly to Myrtle Beach for a family reunion but was heading back home to Jefferson Park in a rideshare after her family’s United flight was canceled.
The outage was evident from display screens that would normally share arrival and departure information or security line wait times were blank for hours.
United employees were busy helping customers print boarding passes and pushing luggage on large carts through the terminals.
Local rail commuters also were impacted by this morning’s outage.
While rail service was operating as usual, there were issues with buying and displaying tickets. The Ventra ticketing app used by Metra and CTA customers was impacted, according to Meg Thomas-Reile, spokesperson for Metra.
“Understand, the Ventra App may not work today, but we’re not going to cause any issues with that,” Thomas-Reile said.
The CTA reported no issues.
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