The Federal Aviation Administration announced earlier today that all Southwest Airlines flights across the United States were being temporarily grounded as the airline worked to resolve a nationwide computer issue, CNN reports. As of this writing, the halt has been lifted.
“Southwest is in the process of resuming normal operations after a brief pause in our flight activity resulting from intermittent performance issues with our network connectivity Tuesday afternoon,” Southwest spokesperson Chris Mainz said in a statement.
Southwest has dealt with two separate technical issues in less than 24 hours. On Monday, the airline encountered a glitch with its third-party weather data app, and decided to suspend service as a precautionary measure. “While the vendor worked to restore connectivity, we implemented a ground stop to protect the safety of our crews and customers,” Mainz said, adding that they don’t believe there’s a connection between the two issues.
Southwest started resuming flight operations around midnight, but according to the aviation tracking site FlightAware, the airline reported 1,520 delays yesterday. Delta and Alaska Airlines also experienced its own technical glitches on Monday that prevented people from booking flights.
The Transportation Security Administration reported that the number of travelers screened eclipsed two million on consecutive days for the first time since March 2020, while Sunday’s total represents the high amount since the pandemic started. With the nation approaching normalcy, it should come as no surprise that people are already willing to embrace the things, like traveling, that they were forced to abandon as a result of the pandemic.
