CNN
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Hundreds of Southwest Airlines flights have been delayed after technical problems brought the airline to a halt on Tuesday morning.
Southwest said the flight delay was the result of a “data connection problem due to a firewall failure,” an incident that resulted in brief ground operations.
Federal Aviation Administration start ground stop at the request of the airline, citing “device problems.” The ground stop was soon lifted, and in a tweeted at 11:35 a.m. ET Southwest said it worked again.
“Early this morning, a vendor-supplied firewall was down and connectivity to some operational data was unexpectedly lost,” spokesman Dan Landson said.
According to FlightAware, Southwest canceled 1,820 flights, or 43% of its schedule, just after noon on Tuesday. According to FlightAware, the airline canceled only nine flights on Tuesday. Southwest said its workers “worked quickly to minimize disruption.”
Southwest reported the technology issues Tuesday morning and said it “hopes to resume our operations as soon as possible.”
The FAA in a statement told CNN that Southwest “has asked the FAA to suspend airline departures.”
The problems come months after the airline was forced to cancel more than 16,700 flights between December 20 and 29, nearly half of its schedule for that period. The airlines attributed the crisis in part to change its employee scheduling computer system. Southwest last month publish “action plan” to prevent another operational crisis.
Southwest called the latest issue a “disruptive technology issue” in a social media post to customers. Some took to social media to complain about delayed flights.
“We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but we hope everyone gets on board as soon as possible,” the airline wrote in another social media post.
A big winter storm service issues begin during the holiday season, But Southwest has had a much harder time recovering as its outdated crew scheduling system quickly overloaded, leaving the airline unable to staff the locations needed to operate flights. fly. Almost half of its schedule was canceled between December 20 and December 29. On some days, 75% of its scheduled flights were cancelled.
Part of the reason Southwest has worse problems than other airlines is that cabin crew members have to call the airline, rather than electronically, to let them know the situation. their readiness.
