The Federal Aviation Administration says Southwest Airlines has asked to halt all departures while they work through reported “intermittent technology issues.”
The Dallas-based airline responded to travelers on Twitter saying a technology issue led to the ground stop and that they hoped to resume operations as soon as possible, though they did not say when they expected to. that things will go back to normal.
Southwest did not specify what the technology issue was
As of 9:55 a.m., data from Flight Aware showed that departure delays at Dallas Love Field were 27 minutes and decreasing even though all inbound flights were held at their origin until 10:45 a.m. morning
The delays come nearly four months after the airline struggled to recover from a winter storm. The storm arrived just before Christmas and caused chaos throughout the airline industry, but Southwest took longer to recover than any of its competitors, because the crew’s scheduling system could not keep up. The airline ended up canceling 16,700 flights in late December. The airline said the collapse cost it about $800 million in lost revenue in the fourth quarter and up to $350 million more earlier this year.
Southwest CEO Robert Jordan has apologized repeatedly for the holiday meltdown, and the airline has announced steps to prevent a repeat, including adding more deicing equipment and staff at key airports and improving its crew-scheduling technology.