Southwest Airlines resumes operations after technical glitch causes mass delays

BALTIMORE — Southwest airlines had to temporarily halt its operations Tuesday morning due to technical issues – resulting in hundreds of Southwest flights being delayed.

Southwest said the flight delays were the result of "data connection issues resulting from a firewall failure," a problem that led to a brief ground stop.

According to FlightAware, Southwest delayed more than 1800 flights by this afternoon -- about 200 of those were at BWI Thurgood Marshal airport , one of its hubs. 

Most flights were delayed by less than two hours. Some passengers we talked to said this is just part of travel these days, others said this shouldn't be the norm.

Cindy, who was getting on a Southwest flight to New Mexico, said, "Well they have got to get their act together. That's it."

A little before 10 Tuesday morning, Southwest airlines requested the federal aviation administration pause the airline's departures, citing data connection issues. A spokesperson for Southwest airlines said in a statement, "a vendor-supplied firewall went down and connection to some operational data was unexpectedly lost." 

The ground stop was soon lifted, and Southwest announced in a tweet at 11:35 a.m. it had resumed operations.

Mindy, who was flying down to Tampa for her daughter's cheerleading competition, barely noticed the disruption.

"I saw it come through that there were some delays, but we didn't have any issues," said Mindy. "Our flight is on time; we didn't have any trouble checking our bags so hopefully it stays that way."

Others experienced delays ranging from 10 minutes to an hour and a half.

Bob, who was traveling with Cindy, said, "You have to be willing to deal with all the problems that can and do happen."

"It's always a hassle to travel now but if you want to go you go," said Cindy.

This disruption was minor, compared to Southwest's meltdown in December. The airline was forced to cancel roughly half of all scheduled flights between December 20 and 29 due in part to issues with its staff scheduling computer systems. In March, Southwest rolled out an action plan to prevent another meltdown.

"They've got to invest in their software and their people and their planes," said Bob. 

"I think that's true for the travel industry," said Cindy.

Cindy and Bob said air travel was more reliable pre-pandemic and they hope it gets back to that soon.

"I think they probably, in the travel industry, don't have their act together behind the scenes and now it's showing," Cindy said.

Southwest airlines said customers holding reservations to or from any southwest destination today can rebook within 14 days of their original travel date without paying any additional charge. You can find more information on rebooking here: