Southwest Airlines (LUV) shares slumped lower Tuesday after the carrier briefly halted all of its domestic flights due to what it called "technical errors".
"Technical errors are unexpected and inconvenient for all, and you have our sincere apologies," Southwest Airlines said.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, in a Tweet posted Tuesday, said Southwest had requested a 'pause' in departures, but did not elaborate on the reason. It later said the groundstop order had been cancelled.
"Southwest has resumed operations after temporarily pausing flight activity this morning to work through data connection issues resulting from a firewall failure<" the carrier said in a statement emailed to TheStreet. "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," the statement added. "We appreciate the patience of our Customers and Employees during this morning’s brief disruption."
Southwest shares were marked 1% lower in mid-day Tuesday trading following reports of the grounding and changing hands at $31.98 each, a move that would extend the stock's year-to-date decline to around 6%.
The temporary grounding comes only four months after Southwest suffered a major profit hit following a series of holiday flight cancellations. Southwest said the chaos -- which disrupted some 16,700 flights -- caused overall expenses to surge by more than 30% to $6.56 billion over the three months ending in December as Southwest paid out cancellation fees, meal vouchers, rental car refunds and hotel reimbursements.
At the time, Southwest said that, "based on current revenue and cost trends", it will likely post another adjusted loss for the first quarter, but noted the booking trends were improving and the carrier remains on track to deliver its longer-term financial targets.
Southwest had previously forecast operating revenues to rise by around 20% to 24% form last year's levels, with "solid profits" and improved margins for the whole of 2023.
The carrier will publish its first quarter earnings on April 27, prior to the market open.
