United Computers Crash, Strand Thousands

United Airlines said Saturday that a computer glitch that grounded flights nationwide and left some passengers stranded overnight had been fixed. The airline blamed the problem on "a network connectivity issue" and said it was in the process of resuming normal operations. But the airline also indicated passengers may experience some delays for the rest of the weekend.

"While we will be experiencing some residual effect on our flight operations throughout the weekend, United is committed to restoring normal operations as soon as possible," said a rep. The outage started around 7:15pm CDT yesterday and lasted for about five hours. As a result, long lines formed at airports in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, and Chicago. Some passengers ended up spending the night at airports or found hotel rooms where they were stranded. An LAX spokeswoman said the outage affected about 2,500 people at that airport alone. (More United Airlines stories.)