United Airlines Allegedly Gave Handwritten Boarding Passes to Passengers During ‘Systemwide Outage’
- Posted on August 28, 2012 at 10:24pm by
Becket Adams
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After some of United Airlines’ major computer systems and its website failed Tuesday afternoon, a few passengers were reportedly issued handwritten boarding passes.
No, really, handwritten:
Courtesy Daily Mail
“We have a network outage & are working to get systems back online. We’ll update soon,” United said Tuesday in a Tweet.
The glitch was another in a long string of technology problems that began when it merged computer systems with Continental’s in March.
United acknowledged at least 200 delayed flights. Its passenger reservation system and website stopped working for about two-and-a-half hours on Tuesday afternoon, although the precise cause wasn’t known.
And although the “systemwide outage” ended at around 5:20 PM (EST), according to FlightAware, the airline expects further “issues and cascading delays through the evening.”
A United Airlines jet pushes back from a gate at Cleveland Hopkins Airport International Airport in July 2012 (Mark Duncan/AP)
Passengers in several United hubs reported very long lines at ticket counters. During the outage it stopped sending planes to its hubs in Newark, N.J., and San Francisco.
Alex Belo was waiting at Newark to get on a flight to Mexico City. He considered himself lucky to be behind only 100 or so people waiting to check a bag – because there were another 300 to 400 behind him.
“The line is not moving, or very slowly moving. And they’re giving priority only to first class,” he said.
United said it will not charge the usual change fees for passengers on affected flights who want to cancel or rebook their tickets. It apologized for the disruption.
Simon Duvall spent two hours sitting on his flight waiting for the computer problems to be resolved. People were calm but not happy, he said.
“We’re on a plane, on the tarmac in Las Vegas in the middle of August. It’s warm. It’s uncomfortable. It’s cramped,” he said.3
AP File Photo
United Continental Holdings Inc. has been struggling with computer issues off and on since March, when it switched to using Continental’s system for tracking passenger information. The two airlines merged in 2010.
Airlines rely on software to know who is filling the seats on its planes, and how many empty seats are available. Oh, incidentally, those computer systems also make it possible to print boarding passes.
Luckily, the outage didn’t affect planes in flight.
Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter
(H/T: Daily Mail). The Associated Press contributed to this story. All photos courtesy the AP.
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65Plus
Posted on August 30, 2012 at 3:02pmThis is what we will be doing after EMP. Oops. Planes won’t fly.
Report Post »aki009
Posted on August 29, 2012 at 1:57pm… has the guy who decided on using Microsoft servers been fired yet?
Report Post »The_Cabrito_Goat
Posted on August 29, 2012 at 11:14amI heard about this story, and thought to myself, electronics can break down, and machines fail. People need to operate their life without the use of technology, because there is only one thing you can rely on, yourself.
Report Post »roadhog
Posted on August 29, 2012 at 10:03amMost people that use united airlines have a premium card and have been checked by secuity and are at the departure gate. Why not board them only one Dum Ass would want to gol to the wrong airport.
Report Post »48Straight
Posted on August 29, 2012 at 3:20amUnited use to be my favorite airline, I have switched to American. Every frequent flyer I know of United is getting fed up with this merger. United had a great reservation system, but for some reason of insanity started using Continental’s during the merger. That is what you get when you merge the worlds best airline, with the worst. Kinda like what you get when you merge America with Obama.
Report Post »JerryNic
Posted on August 29, 2012 at 10:53amYeah…merging Obama with America has been on big disaster.
Report Post »TullaBulla
Posted on August 29, 2012 at 1:41amGonna write my self up two tickets to paradise.
Report Post »Chuck Stein
Posted on August 28, 2012 at 11:55pmWhy is it so bad that they improvised?
Report Post »RJJinGadsden
Posted on August 29, 2012 at 12:00amThey must have watched Clint Eastwood, Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome.
Report Post »Weiners Wiener
Posted on August 29, 2012 at 12:10amYou don’t see a potential security risk there? Anyone can handwrite a boarding pass if they have a black card to write on. Think.
Report Post »ComingUnglued
Posted on August 29, 2012 at 5:11amHow did the world function before electricity and computers? You should applaud the fact that they wanted to move the line and gave a paper ticket. Next time they will wait out the problem until their system comes back online, you would probably miss you connecting flight, vacation etc.
Report Post »Security issues, you think people with ulterior motives don’t buy plane tickets. Profiling and talking to people that is what stops the threats.
00gabooga
Posted on August 28, 2012 at 11:31pmDon’t worry folks, they don’t need electricity to break guitars.
Report Post »Exrepublisheep
Posted on August 28, 2012 at 11:08pmLemons=lemonade.
Report Post »Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on August 28, 2012 at 10:44pmOne more mess upon other messes.
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