Southwest Airlines Resumes Flights

Update: Southwest Airlines has resumed flights. The airline explained in a statement that a connection to some operational data was unexpectedly lost when a firewall supplied by a vendor went down. The airline said that it had worked quickly to minimize disruptions and that it appreciated the patience of its customers and employees. More than 1,700 flights were delayed, which accounts for more than 40 percent of its schedule for the day.

Original article: Southwest Airlines flights have all been grounded over a technical issue currently affecting the carrier’s systems, which has already caused around 800 delays.

In posts to social media, travelers from all over the country say that they are being held over the issue, which is reportedly affecting the company’s entire system.

“As a result of the intermittent technology issues that we experienced, we should hopefully be resuming our operation as soon as possible,” a tweet from Southwest Airlines read Tuesday. “We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but we’re hoping to get everyone going ASAP.”

The tweet is one of several Southwest Airlines wrote as many travelers took to social media to indicate they were recently informed their flights had been delayed for various reasons pertaining to an “outage.”

The U.S. Federal Aviation Authority also said in a tweet that Southwest Airlines has made a request to pause the airline’s departures. The story is still developing.

The incident comes after a similar system outage saw more than 16,000 Southwest flights cancelled over the end of 2023 and early January.