NEW YORK – Thousands of United Airlines passengers around the globe were delayed for hours Thursday after another huge computer outage at the world's largest carrier.

The outage lasted for about two hours in the morning, affecting half of all flights on United's main network. It was at least the third major outage for the Chicago-based airline since June.

Major delays across the world, especially those early in the morning, can easily ripple throughout an airline's network. United runs about 5,500 flights a day worldwide.