UPDATE: As of 21:20 EST on Wednesday, August 6, the ground stop has been lifted. However, passengers should expect residual delays for the rest of the day as the airline tries to resume operations.
On Wednesday night, all United Airlines mainline aircraft were grounded due to a systemwide outage. With initially no timetable for flights to resume operations, aircraft on the ground were standing on taxiways or returning to their gates (many arrivals on the ground are still looking for gates as I write this).
According to JonNYC, the ground stop was due to a systemwide outage of United’s weight and balance system.
ATCSCC advisory had a bunch of United Airlines only ground stops for its major hubs. This was the one for Chicago O’Hare:
Regional aircraft were spared from the ground stop. That includes Republic Airways, Skywest, and others.
Below was the situation at Chicago O’Hare. With the ground stop, aircraft were being held at the gate (“on the ramp,” as I heard from O’Hare ground ATC), meaning United Airlines arrivals at the airport have no gates to go.
Note that although departures have resumed, O’Hare is still packed with arrivals. Many are still sitting on taxiways awaiting gates.
As of 19:35 Chicago time, I was able to count a total of 31 United mainline aircraft on the ground waiting for a gate upon arrival. Some of these aircraft have been waiting for a gate for over 2 hours. As more United flights keep landing, the number of aircraft on the ground continues to go up. I have to wonder if O’Hare will reach a point where it won’t be able to receive any more United flights with the lack of space and gates.
There was a similar event a couple of months ago in Atlanta, where many Frontier flights had nowhere to go after arriving in a storm-ridden Atlanta Airport. Many Frontier flights were stuck on the taxiway waiting for a gate for over 5 hours, as there just weren’t enough gates. With no timetable for resumption, the current situation in Chicago certainly has the ingredients to reach a similar level.
It’s still a similar sight at other United hubs, with arrivals looking for a gate in an airport packed with United airplanes.
Featured image by the author.
