Southwest departures resume after hundreds of flights delayed

DALLAS (CBSNewsTexas/KDKA) — Southwest Airlines has resumed departures after an equipment outage forced hundreds of flights to be delayed Tuesday morning. 

According to the flight tracking website Flight Aware, more than 1,700 Southwest flights nationwide were delayed as of 10:45 a.m. Tuesday.

The FAA's official Twitter account posted that Southwest Airlines had requested a "pause on the airline's departures."

CBS News correspondent Kris Van Cleave later reported that Southwest was resuming departures, but a temporary ground stop remained at Dallas Love Field, due to a lack of gate space. That ground stop was eventually lifted as well.

In a statement, Southwest said the issue was caused by "a vendor-supplied firewall that went down and connection to some operational data was unexpectedly lost."

Southwest has resumed operations after temporarily pausing flight activity this morning to work through data connection issues resulting from a firewall failure. Early this morning, a vendor-supplied firewall went down and connection to some operational data was unexpectedly lost. Southwest Teams worked quickly to minimize flight disruptions. We ask that travelers use Southwest.com to check flight status or visit a Southwest Airlines Customer Service Agent at the airport for assistance with travel needs. We appreciate the patience of our Customers and Employees during this morning's brief disruption.

Earlier Tuesday, the airline's social media accounts had been responding to passengers' posts, apologizing for the delays. 

"As a result of the intermittent technology issues that we experienced, we should hopefully be resuming our operation as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but we're hoping to get everyone going ASAP," read one reply.

KDKA-TV talked to a passenger from Florida who was stuck in Pittsburgh on Tuesday.

SUPER: LAURIE RAVER, SOUTHWEST PASSENGER"It was delayed a little bit and then sitting here it got delayed again, and now it's delayed one more time," Laurie Raver said early Tuesday.

The Dallas-based airline is no stranger to technology issues impacting operations. Last December, widespread winter weather and outdated staffing technology resulted in thousands of Southwest flights being canceled during the peak of the holiday travel season. Last month the airline released an action plan in response to the travel disruptions, which includes making investments to update its technology.

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