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CNN NEWSROOM

United Grounds All Flights; United Releases Statement Acknowledging Computer Glitch; Jimmy Walker Discusses Bill Cosby. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired July 8, 2015 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:31:32] ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: We're continuing to follow breaking news right now. United Airlines has grounded planes nationwide because of a system-wide computer problem. This is according to the FAA.

I want to bring back some of our correspondents who are working to gather more information. Let's start with our Chad Myers right now tracking all of this as it unfolds.

Chad.

OK, excuse me, we're going to go to Rene Marsh, who is joining us right now on the phone.

Rene, what are you learning?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, Ana, at this point we know that there is still this chaotic situation at airports across the nation simply because of this widespread computer issue that United Airlines is dealing with. It is impacting flights from the East Coast to the West Coast, north to south. I mean we're talking about across the map here.

We have not heard any official word from United Airlines themselves. We have reached out via phone and e-mail. So we have not heard from them. I would imagine they're scrambling to address whatever the issue is.

One slight update. We do have crews on the scene at Reagan National Airport right outside Washington, D.C., and our crews there tell us they have witnessed, you know, the first couple of passengers getting their boarding passes. So perhaps -- and again this is without official word from the airline -- but perhaps whatever this computer problem is, is slowly being resolved as our crews, they've spotted the first set of passengers getting their boarding passes.

But again, Ana, at this hour, we don't know, you know, is it 50 percent resolved, is it 20 percent resolved. That we don't know. We know, based on a lot of passengers we're hearing from, it's a nightmarish situation at airports across the U.S. And what we still don't know that I think everybody is wondering is, what in the world could have caused such a widespread computer problem that would lead to the grounding of aircraft nationwide?

So that is the key question at this hour. You know, was it just a simple glitch or was it something more? We had seen in the past -- and we're not saying that that's the situation here -- but we have seen with other airlines in the past, most recently a Polish airline in which their systems were hacked. Their ground systems were hacked. Again, not saying that that's the situation here, but that's the obviously question that everyone has is, what -- what caused this widespread situation? And that answer, we do not have at this hour, Ana.

CABRERA: We've heard and now we're seeing the pictures about people getting tickets that are being written by hand. I want to show some pictures of this if we can pull those up. A tweet sent to us by Kyung Lah. And you see people filling out information and those tickets being issued by hand. It makes me wonder, why are they even filling out these tickets by hand right now if flights aren't going anywhere, Rene?

MARSH: So I can tell you that United Airlines, though we haven't heard from them, they are active and engaging with consumers online. It looks like on Twitter, the airline responding to a passenger who wants to know what is going on. United responding, quote, "we are working to resolve the issue with the passenger service system and apologize for the inconvenience. So they are acknowledging at least the issue via social media.

[09:35:10] Many outraged passengers wanting to know, you know, what's the situation? Why is it that they're manually having to be checked in or are there delays as a result of this? And as you know, because the air system is so fragile, when you have, you know, a situation like this, I mean we're talking about a ripple effect here. I mean it could take several hours today before things get back on track as a result of this, Ana.

CABRERA: It does sound like a travel nightmare. Rene Marsh, we appreciate that. Thank you so much.

I want to bring in Moshe Isenberg, one of the unfortunate passengers who was on a United flight this morning that was impacted.

What can you tell us about what happened? Walk us through your experience, Moshe.

MOSHE ISENBERG, STRANDED UNITED PASSENGER (via telephone): Yes, absolutely. It's crazy at O'Hare. We got on the plane. Boarding time was about 6:25. We got on the plane. It's a Wednesday, so, you know, crowds at O'Hare on Wednesday are usually pretty good. Everyone was able to get on the plane and then we just sat. And normally when we would, you know, the gates would -- when the boarding door would close, we would just push back. And we were just waiting.

And then the pilot got on and said, you know, there's a computer error, a computer glitch going on and so sit tight. And then about 20 minutes later it was, the computers are down and we're not really sure what's going to be, so everyone get your stuff and go back out of the plane into the gate area.

The gate agents here told me that they've been working here for years and they've never seen this. People here are on the phone scrambling to reschedule. I saw two people in front of me who just said, keep the tickets and they're running to another airline to see if they can get to New York that way. I know I've been on the phone trying to reschedule my meetings today and it's just -- it's chaotic.

CABRERA: So you can't even reschedule at this point. What are you -- what are you being told, to just hang tight?

ISENBERG: Yes. I mean we're really being told nothing. The only thing they're telling us is that there's nothing we can do. You know, when you walk into an airport and you see that the -- that the screen by the gate is literally blank, it's a little unnerving. Usually it has some sort of information. Now it's just -- it's nothing. It's just -- it's just a blank screen and nobody really knows when it's going to be. One other gate agent told me it could be one hour, it could be three hours, it could be 10 hours. So we're -- they don't have any information, so they can't give us any information.

CABRERA: We're looking at live images right now from the airport in Houston, where you just see all these planes parked at the gate. This -- this is in Iowa, am I -- are you're telling me? This is Houston. OK, thanks.

And, Moshe, I guess, finally, what are you planning to do?

ISENBERG: I'm going to sit tight. I've got -- I've got meetings all day. So if -- if I have to push off some of them and catch the others, then I will. But, you know, hopefully United can get their act together and we can make it happen today.

CABRERA: All right. Good look to you. Moshe Isenberg, thanks so much for spending some time with us. Keep us posted on how the traveling is going for you. We appreciate it.

We'll take a quick break and be right back. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:42:14] 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?

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.

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?

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.

[09:45:00] 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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

CABRERA: Rene, do we know how many passengers this could affect today?

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.

[09:50:08] 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.

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.

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.

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.

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[09:55:31] CABRERA: Hundreds of flights are grounded right now, going nowhere, across the nation because United experienced a system-wide computer problem that you can see is affecting flights from Los Angeles to New York and everywhere in between. We're continuing to watch this situation. This is a live image right now from Los Angeles. United acknowledging they have a problem but not saying when it will be restored or what caused it just yet.

In the meantime, we're also keeping an eye on Wall Street. U.S. markets opening and stocks are dropping right now on news China's market has tanked. I want to bring in Alison Kosik; she's at the New York Stock Exchange right now. We see the Dow is down about 170 points, Alison. Fill us in on what we can expect.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Certainly, Ana, a rough start to the trading day. Why? It's a toss-up between what's happening in Greece and what's happening in China. You look at Greece, eurozone gave the latest ultimatum, holding Greece's feet to the fire, telling Greece, you've got until Sunday to come up with a deal or you're kicked out of the euro. And then China, its main stock index crashing 30 percent over the past three weeks after panicked selling. That's despite desperate measures by the Chinese government to prop it up. That's also causing that jittery effect here in the U.S, why we're seeing the Dow down 171 points at the half hour into the trading day. We'll keep an eye on all the numbers for you, Ana.

CABRERA: All right, Alison Kosik, thanks for the update.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL COSBY, AS DR. HUXTABLE: (INAUDIBLE).

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you fresh?

COSBY: Farm fresh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Mommy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Rudy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: He's remembered as America's dad, Dr. Huxtable on "The Cosby Show", and as the lovable pitchman for Jell-O. But a former co-star says Cosby's womanizing ways, that was a well-known secret.

We're joined by Jimmy Walker, who starred with Bill Cosby in the 1975 film "Let's Do It Again". Jimmy, thanks so much for spending some time with us. What do you make of all --

JIMMY WALKER, ACTOR: Hi, Ana.

CABRERA: -- these allegations and now Cosby's admission about obtaining quaaludes to give to women with whom he wanted to have sex.

WALKER: Well, first of all, I don't think it was a surprise to anyone in the industry. I think, coming out the way it did, it's just a build-up of what has been there all along. Cosby is my idol. I mean, he is my idol. And we have all known about these kind of things that have been going on for years and years, from the time he was the Hilton here in Las Vegas. I meant to talk with (INAUDIBLE) this week in Las Vegas.. And we have known about this from the times I did my film with him, "Let's Do It Again", which was a great honor to work with Bill Cosby.

But it's a shame to see that Bill Cosby is now turning into the O.J. Simpson of the comedy world. And that's a bad thing. And a lot of this is because Cosby has put himself up as America's dad, as the guy with the Jell-O, and all that kind of stuff like that. And when you pull back the shades, you found out that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't that guy. He's the greatest comedian, I think, of all time. There's two different things. There's a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde kind of deal here. There's Cosby --

CABRERA: I know that you've described him sort of as Wilt Chamberlain-like.

WALKER: Yes. He is on that level in terms of women and stuff that he has done. But, again, he's on the genius category of stand-up and everything he's done.

I think that through the years -- I'm surprised that Cosby had to use drugs, because women flocked to Cosby. They loved Cosby. He was that kind of personality -- strong, defiant, just making tremendous progress, coming out with one of the best shows of all time. But always, always a lot of women around. And that's just the way he rolled.

When this whole thing went down, it came from -- a lot of it -- the black, urban comic, who Cosby had put himself up on a pedestal, you can dig that in the pound cake speech where he's talking about how people steal Coca-colas and this and that. You got that from Cosby, that he was the guy.

[10:00:00] And you cannot be the guy if they pull back the covers and this kind of thing is found. He is the greatest comedian of all time. I don't understand why the quaaludes were in there.