Handovers in a New Radio-Unlicensed Standalone (NR-U SA) communication system are managed by invoking one of a plurality of handover procedures based on conditions related to the communication device and channel status. One example of one of the plurality of handover procedures includes sending a handover command with an inactivity indicator to the UE device where the UE device transitions to an Inactive State (such as RRC_INACTIVE) in response to a handover failure (HOF) resulting from an occupied unlicensed channel. The UE device provides the I-RNTI allocated by the last serving gNB when resuming from the RRC_INACTIVE to the active state; thereby reducing the latency associated with a new connection from the idle mode. The target gNB uses the I-RNTI to retrieve the UE context from the last serving gNB.