Friday's airline shutdown reminder of computer dependency

CHICAGO (AP)

A five-hour computer outage that virtually shut down United Airlines Friday night and early Saturday is a stark reminder of how dependent airlines have become on technology.

Passengers saw their flight information vanish from airport screens, and thousands were stranded as United canceled 31 flights and delayed 105 worldwide.

The airline still had no explanation Saturday afternoon for the outage. But things could have been much worse.

A blizzard in the Northeast wiped out more than 10,000 flights over three days in December, a mid-January storm led airlines to cancel nearly 9,000 flights.

Friday's shutdown occurred late enough in the day that many of the canceled flights were the last planes out for the day, said Henry Harteveldt, an airline analyst with Forrester Research. On a Monday morning, the results could have been catastrophic.

"It happened as a lot of the airline was going to sleep for the night," Harteveldt said.

That doesn't mean affected travelers were happy.

"I'm just amazed at how catastrophic the failure was," said Jason Huggins, 35, who was trying to fly home to Chicago after a week working at his software company's San Francisco headquarters. "All the computer screens were blank, just showing the United logo."

Huggins paid $1,200 to book one of the last three seats left on an American Airlines flight home.