Southwest Airlines flights were being disrupted and the company’s website was down because of an apparent technical glitch late Wednesday afternoon.Southwest Airlines flights were being disrupted and the company’s website was down because of an apparent technical glitch late Wednesday afternoon.
A spokesperson for Lambert said things were running pretty well, with just 10 total delays.
Customers were complaining to the carrier via social media about delayed flights, which appeared to be affecting Southwest flights across its entire system. Customers talked of delays and growing airport queues.
It was not immediately clear when the problems first began. Southwest acknowledged the issue just before 3 p.m. ET with a tweet saying it was "investigating current issues with our systems." Southwest also took to social media to respond to delayed fliers.
"We're having some technical difficulties. We're working hard to get this resolved and appreciate your patience!," said one response from Southwest's Twitter account.
We are aware and investigating current issues with our systems. We will keep you posted as we have more information to share.— Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) July 20, 2016The airline told another passenger that there was "no ETA at this time" for a possible fix, advising that flier to "continue to work with agents at the airport."
Southwest’s website also was affected, with customers unable to get to the airline’s booking or check-in pages.
The site showed an error page, with a message reading:
“We’re working hard to get you where you want to be. Please do not refresh your browser. We will automatically transfer you to Southwest.com as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience."The site remained offline as of 4:45 p.m. ET.
And, at 4:50 p.m. ET, Southwest tweeted: "At this time, there are no new updates available. We're doing our best to work on the issue as quickly as possible."
Today in the Sky has reached out to Southwest for more information.
Southwest airlines released the following statement:
Southwest Airlines began experiencing intermittent performance issues earlier this afternoon with multiple technology systems as a result of an outage. We are now managing flight delays across our system, with a temporary ground stop in place for those flights that have not left the gate. We apologize to our Customers whose travel plans are impacted. We have a Team of experts working diligently to resolve the technical issues and their efforts have systems gradually coming back online. We expect to continue our move toward a normal operation but believe it will take time. Updates will be posted on swamedia.com, our Southwest Facebook page and Twitter accounts.