A nationwide ground stop on all Southwest Airlines flights was implemented and later lifted by the Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A.) on Tuesday morning. In a tweet citing “a technical issue with one of their internal systems,” Southwest requested the F.A.A. pause its departures, to which the administration obliged.
The outage appeared to happen around 9:45 a.m. ET but had been resolved by 11 a.m. The airline’s service has resumed, although there is still a hold on flights into Dallas Love Field Airport, according to CNN, and there still may be other residual flight delays as a result of the pause. To that end, according to FlightAware, over 1,500 flights (36 percent) of Southwest’s flights are currently delayed this morning.
“Early this morning, a vendor-supplied firewall went down and connection to some operational data was unexpectedly lost,” the company said in a statement and reported by AP News.
On Southwest’s website, it has also noted issues with its “Upcoming Trip” feature. “We are currently experiencing delays updating your Upcoming Trip list in your account and used on our Homepage while logged in. This does not impact your trip itself,” the airline wrote. “Recently purchased, changed, or cancelled trips may be delayed in posting to your Upcoming Trip list in your account or on the homepage of our website or app while logged in. Our teams are working to urgently fix this issue.”
This is the second instance of mass cancellations by Southwest Airlines in the past five months. In December 2022, the airline canceled upwards of 60 percent of its flights (more than 15,000 in all) due to an outdated computer system for crew scheduling. Following that event, Southwest president and CEO Bob Jordan said the company would be updating its crew engagement technology, crew recovery system and established supplemental operational staffing. The airline also budgeted more than $1 billion of its annual operating plan on investments, upgrades and maintenance to its IT systems—the main culprit behind the delays and cancelations.
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