Southwest Airlines Jets Grounded 2nd Time In 2 Days Due To System Outage
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Southwest Airlines flights were grounded on Tuesday, June 15 across the country due to another computer system outage.
By mid-afternoon, the nation's fourth-largest airline had canceled about 500 flights and delayed nearly 1,300 others, according to tracking service FlightAware.
Shortly after 2:30 p.m., the airline released the following statement:
Southwest is in the process of resuming normal operations after a brief pause in our flight activity resulting from intermittent performance issues with our network connectivity Tuesday afternoon. Our Teams are working quickly to minimize flight disruptions and Customer impact. We appreciate our Customers' patience as we work to get them to their destinations. We ask that travelers use Southwest.com to check flight status or consult a Southwest Airlines Customer Service Agent at the airport for assistance with travel needs.
Today, we've proactively canceled roughly 500 flights due to the outage, and we're working with those Customers to get them to their destinations as quickly as possible.
The Dallas-based airline confirmed it experienced a system-wide error possibly involving the airline's weather monitoring system on Monday night as well.
Shortly after 10:00 p.m., flights were taking off again.
But on Tuesday, the airline suffered another system outage.
So far, 53 flights out of Love Field have been cancelled due to the issues.
The Federal Aviation Administration released the following statement on Twitter Tuesday afternoon:
The FAA issued a temporary nationwide ground stop at the request of Southwest Airlines while the company resolved a reservation computer issue. Please contact the airline for further details.
In an email response to CBS 11, Dallas Love Field explained what it is doing for passengers who are delayed.
"Our staff will be here and we'll keep the terminal open again overnight if needed. We encourage people to arrive at least 90 minutes ahead of time if they are flying this afternoon. The lines at check-in are very long."
"We got through security, and they told us our flight was cancelled about five minutes before pre-board," said traveler Thomas Chandler at Love Field. "So we stood in a long line, and we were fortunate to get on a flight a few hours from now going to Denver, but it remains to be seen whether that flight actually happens or not."
"For a lot of people, it's hours. Even where we were past security up in the gates, those areas and trying to speak with customer service, the line is hundreds of people long, hundreds of people," said traveler Eric Sokol.
