Southwest Airlines passengers have been grounded across the US today after a 'computer glitch'. Punters took to social media today, Tuesday, April 18, to voice their frustrations, with many searching for advice about the situation.
One man, Shawn, found himself stuck on the tarmac in Nashville said they had been "sitting engines off for about 30 min so far!" He told The Mirror: "Everyone is pretty upset. Sounds like we are getting off the plane finally to wait in the airport. The captain has not given any info on the situation."
One user took to Twitter to say they were "stuck in LAS and no one's talking". The airline told ABC that "operations are paused", with a huge total of 795 flights delayed as of 10.30am ET (2.30pm GMT). The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement: "Southwest Airlines requested the FAA pause the airline's departures. Please contact Southwest Airlines for more."
On Reddit, one poster said: "Currently sitting at the airport in Denver, waiting to board a flight that should have already departed. We are being told there is a system wide issue and nationwide full ground stop?!?!? Anyone know what's going on?"
On Twitter, meteorologist Kirsten Currie shared her experience "sitting at the gate in Nashville". She said passengers were told of the delays after the "plane was 30 plus" minutes late for 'maintenance'.
However, Southwest Airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed by late morning East Coast time, that the temporary delay on all flights had been lifted, reports The Mirror.
The Dallas airline stated: "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."
Southwest Airlines also took to Twitter to calm fears, with over 1,500 flights delayed. They tweeted: "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."
Southwest accounted for more than half of all delays nationwide by late morning - but, the according to Flightware the airline only cancelled fewer than a dozen flights.
This is not the first time Southwest Airlines has faced IT issues. They almost had a near meltdown over the Christmas holiday period in 2022, cancelling more than 15,000 flights over a seven-day period.
The winter weather disrupted travel on December 22, 2022, and caused issues for multiple airlines. Southwest cancelled more flights than other airlines such as Delta, American Airlines and United Airlines.
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