Southwest Airlines was forced to halt its entire fleet across the US on Tuesday morning due to a technical glitch that delayed around 1,700 flights.[0] The issue was blamed on data connection problems caused by a firewall failure. A vendor-supplied firewall went down early on Tuesday morning, resulting in the loss of connection to some operational data. The airline quickly worked to resolve the issue and minimise flight disruptions.[1] Southwest has resumed operations and said that passengers affected by the delays can rebook in the original class of service or travel standby within 14 days of their original travel date between the original city-pairs at no additional cost.[2] The incident follows the airline’s meltdown over the year-end holidays last year when thousands of flights were cancelled, resulting in an $800m pretax hit for the fourth quarter.[3]
0. “Southwest flights resume after technical issues ground flights in San Diego, across US” ABC 10 News San Diego KGTV, 18 Apr. 2023, https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/southwest-airlines-flights-delayed-at-san-diego-international-airport-across-us-041823
1. “FAA issues nationwide ground stop on Southwest flights” Houston Chronicle , 18 Apr. 2023, https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/transportation/article/southwest-faa-ground-stop-17903859.php
2. “Southwest flights delayed at KCI after airline pauses operations due to technology issue” Kansas City Star, 18 Apr. 2023, https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/article274441940.html
3. “Southwest Airlines briefly pauses departures after reporting technical problems” CNBC, 18 Apr. 2023, https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/18/southwest-airlines-departures-pause.html