United Grounds All Flights; United Releases Statement Acknowledging Computer Glitch
CABRERA: We continue to follow breaking news right now. If you're just joining us, United has grounded most of its flights because of a system-wide computer problem. Right now United's not talking, but the FAA tells us that there's an automation issue that's happening and so passengers are waiting anxiously at airports all around the world. You can see the huge long lines there in Los Angeles. We've seen pictures of ticket agents writing tickets by hand. We just talked to a passenger who said he was already on his flight and had to deplane after some time. And right now no one seems to know exactly what's next. I want to bring Chad Myers into the conversation here. I know, Chad, you've been tracking kind of the bigger picture when it comes to this. Obviously there were some flights already in the air when the computers crashed or all this information went away. What are your learning?</s>CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You know, for those people that are in the air, this is not an issue at all. They're already ticketed. They already know who they are. They're already in the plane. The planes are getting down to the ground accordingly. Now we're down to 162 planes on the ground right now. A lot of them landing right there in Chicago. The rest still coming in from the Chicago area flying out to the west. Those are all the planes that got into the air before the ground stop began. If you take a look at these flights here, these are all coming into Chicago right now. Those flights are not taking off. They are gray because they are landing. There's nothing taking off. We haven't had a single flight in the air now for a couple of hours. A -- not a new flight in the air. All these are older flights that left before 6:00, 6:30 Central Time, even 7:00 Central Time. A few flights did get off. But for now, nothing new getting in the air at all. Still we call that a ground stop. You are on the ground until we figure this out is what United is saying.</s>CABRERA: All right, Chad, thanks so much. And one of those people who just arrived in Chicago, in fact, our Brianna Keilar, who just traveled from Iowa to Chicago. And as we continue to show pictures all across the country, you'll see these long lines. These poor -- poor travelers and passengers. Brianna, what is the situation where you are?</s>BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): You know, you'd think everything was pretty normal, Ana, for us. We left Cedar Rapids, Iowa, around -- a little after 7:30 Central Time. We are now in Chicago. We're only halfway through our journey. And so some of the issues obviously with grounding flights happened while we were in the air. We are booked on another carrier now to get back to D.C. because we're only partway through our journey. But we had a sense that things were not well when we got to the airport in Cedar Rapids, eastern Iowa airport because my producer, Rachel Streitfeld, had checked in the night before and she was fine to go through security. But I couldn't check in using the United app. I couldn't check in using United's website.</s>KEILAR: And when I went to the desk, all of their check in kiosks were out and the gate agents, or the agents there, there's a bunch for checking in, were confused about sort of what to do. They managed to process me manually by going to their back office. But it was really -- it seemed like I might not be able to get through. And I remember thinking if this is what's happening with everyone checking in everywhere, it's quite time consuming and they wouldn't be able to check everyone in, which is now what we're seeing.</s>CABRERA: I know CNN has been trying to get hold of United to get more information that we could pass along to you, to our viewers, who are also waiting to find out what's next for them if they're traveling and they're stuck at the airport. Do you get a sense that they're trying to put people on flights on other airlines?</s>KEILAR: I'm actually sitting on a plane right now on the United's express jet. We actually pulled up to the gate and people are waiting to get off the plane. I think people will start to get a sense that there may be an issue if they have a connection. But as of now I think we're really just in the midst of dealing with how we get to our next destination. I had to come back with my producer to go to work so we booked knowing there was this ground stop issue just by calling another carrier. But I think other people are about to find out, as we get off the plane here, that their connections are in danger.</s>CABRERA: And before I let you go, Brianna, real quick, you mentioned that you noticed that there was something up even before you boarded your flight that you're currently on, waiting in Chicago. How long ago was that?</s>KEILAR: So that was 7:30 Central. So that was about an hour -- well, actually, no, that's not true. That was more than two hours ago. So that would have been about 6:30 Central, 7:30 Eastern, when we got to the airport. And I was just trying to check in on the United app, which is normally very easy to do. And it wasn't working. It didn't register my confirmation code. We went over to the kiosks at the normal check in desk and we couldn't check in there; they were all blank. And then we tried united.com while we were waiting for assistance. So it was clear to us that there were issues from the beginning and that they seemed to be widespread. There were other travelers around us who were saying, you know, I've tried it too. I can't get through either. They managed to process us. But again it seemed like it was because it was a small airport, we're on a flight with not that many people. And so they were able to do it manually just because of the fact that there weren't that many of us.</s>CABRERA: Yes, you're there in Chicago, a hub for United. I imagine you'll see a lot of other passengers there. All right, thank you so much, Brianna for checking in. We do appreciate that. Rene Marsh is with us again. Just got a statement from United. What does it say?</s>MARSH: So the airline is saying -- it's a pretty short statement, but they say, quote, "We experienced a network connectivity issue this morning. We are working to resolve this and apologize to customers for any inconvenience." So that is it. The airline now acknowledging that there is a computer issue, but of course it still does not answer the question of what caused this computer issue. I'm sure they're working to try and figure that out, what could have caused something so widespread that every flight nationwide had to be grounded. It is unclear at this point. But this is the first statement that we're getting from the airline acknowledging the issue. Just to recap, we did tell you earlier we sent a crew to Reagan National Airport outside of Washington, D.C., to check out the situation there. And we saw some signs that looked promising, but there's no indication That this issue is close to being 100 percent resolved. We did see here, at Reagan National Airport, passengers were starting to receive boarding passes being printed out. So that's obviously a good sign as far as maybe the computer system at that particular airport. But again this is a nationwide problem. So we don't know whether this is 20 percent solved, 30 percent resolved. We don't know that, how far along they're getting in solving whatever the issue is. So people need to prepare to either be delayed or just have that patience as they try to get on their flight. We have Brianna Keilar have trying to get home here to Washington, D.C. As we know, just the way the air system is set up, it's a fragile system. So it really is a domino effect. When something like this happens, it could take hours and hours before things corrects itself. Ana.</s>CABRERA: Rene, do we know how many passengers this could affect today?</s>MARSH: I mean, we're talking about thousands and thousands and thousands of passengers. I don't have an exact count. But I mean, when you think about it, United Airlines flies across the nation, you have over 100 passengers on board an aircraft. I mean, we're talking about a lot of people who are impacted. And then of course that impacts the connecting flights. So you see what we're talking about when we talk about this domino effect. So it really is a mess at the airports to have a system go down and you not able to allow flights to take off. So we're talking about a lot of people who are having a tough time at airports, Ana.</s>CABRERA: Right, and United releasing that statement, acknowledging that it is indeed a computer issue. But it also doesn't say any kind of a timeline on when they may have the problem restored.</s>MARSH: Exactly. There is no timeline for when this could correct itself. And, like I said, even once the computer systems are back, you still have the issue of rebooking people. A lot of flights these days are really packed, and so then you have to go through the process of getting people on flights, getting people to where they need to go. And that's a whole other project that will take quite a bit of time, Ana.</s>CABRERA: No doubt there will be a trickle down effect. Thank you so much, Rene Marsh, reporting live for us, our aviation correspondent, continuing to follow this snafu within the United system. And we'll continue to stay on top of it. We'll take a quick break and be back with more news right after this.