United briefly grounds all US, Canada flights for second time in 2 months

Operations are back up and running at United Airlines after a brief ground stop due to a technological issue.

The short-lived stop lasted an hour on Wednesday after the airline requested the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) pause departures at U.S. and Canadian airports. It is the second time in two months United has temporarily grounded all of its mainline flights.

“United experienced a brief connectivity issue just before midnight Central time on Tuesday, but has since resumed normal operations,” a spokesperson for the airline said in a statement to FOX Business. 

As of Wednesday morning, the ground stop had not been mentioned on the airline’s or FAA-related social media accounts. 

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In August, United Airlines said a glitch caused grounded flights across major U.S. airports including Newark, Denver, Houston and Chicago, resulting in widespread delays throughout its network. The outage was resolved within a few hours.

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Ground stops are a process that requires “aircraft that meet a specific criteria to remain on the ground,” the FAA’s website says. They can be airport, airspace or equipment specific. The traffic management initiatives usually occur with little to no warning, according to the FAA. 

FOX Business’ Greg Wehner, Rachel Wolf and Reuters contributed to this report.