SAN ANTONIO – The Federal Aviation Administration paused all Southwest Airlines flights for a short time Tuesday morning at the airline’s request.
The FAA Tweeted just after 9:30 a.m. Tuesday that Southwest requested the FAA pause the airline’s departures. About 30 minutes later, the FAA said the “pause has been fully canceled.”
This morning @SouthwestAir experienced a technical issue with one of their internal systems.
— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) April 18, 2023
At the airline’s request, the FAA paused Southwest’s departures as they resolved the issue.
The pause has been lifted and their service has resumed.
According to the FAA and Southwest Airlines, the Dallas-based company was experiencing a technical issue with one of its internal systems.
“Southwest has resumed operations after temporarily pausing flight activity this morning to work through data connection issues resulting from a firewall failure,” Southwest said in a prepared statement to the Associated Press. “Early this morning, a vendor-supplied firewall went down and connection to some operational data was unexpectedly lost.”
The issue looks to be resolved, and Southwest flights out of the San Antonio International Airport are still scheduled as “on time.”
We’ve resumed operations this morning following a pause in service. Please visit https://t.co/64eTbzR9ph to check your flight status and explore self-service options as we work to restore operations and accommodate disrupted Customers as quickly as possible. pic.twitter.com/xGLJLsbiQV
— Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) April 18, 2023
However, any Southwest customer with a flight on Tuesday can rebook without paying an additional charge. They must rebook in their original service or stand by within 14 days.
Customers who booked their flight on Southwest.com or the mobile app can reschedule online or on their mobile device. All other customers can call 1-800-435-9792 to speak with a customer representative.
Customers may also request a refund if their flight was canceled. For more information, click here.
According to AP, Southwest accounted for more than half of delays nationwide by the late morning, but few were canceled.
In December, Southwest canceled nearly 17,000 flights over the Christmas holiday due to bad weather and its crew-scheduling system becoming overwhelmed. Those cancellations cost the airline more than $1 billion and are being investigated by the Transportation Department.
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