Topline
The Federal Aviation Administration briefly issued a nationwide ground stop of all Southwest Airlines flights in the U.S. Tuesday morning due to a technical issue, just months after the airline’s epic meltdown over the holidays left millions of passengers stranded.
Southwest Airlines briefly grounded its departing flights Tuesday morning over a technical issue.
Key Facts
The FAA said it issued the ground stop of Southwest’s departures at the airline’s request, but later lifted the ground stop after the company “resolved the issue” with the company’s internal systems.
Southwest requested the ground stop due to “intermittent issues,” company spokesperson Katy Corley said in a Twitter post, saying its flights should resume “as soon as possible.”
More than 2,800 flights within, into or out of the U.S have been delayed as of noon on Tuesday, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware, with more than 1,750 of those coming on Southwest flights.
Key Background
The ground stop comes nearly four months after a series of winter storms left crews displaced, causing more than 16,700 flights to be canceled and leaving roughly 2 million passengers stranded. COO Andrew Watterson later apologized for, saying the airline rebooked stranded passengers’ flights, processed refunds and admitted in a congressional hearing: “We messed up.”
Further Reading
Southwest Had ‘Epic Screw Up’: Airline Faces Bipartisan Criticism In Congress (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/04/18/southwest-airlines-briefly-grounds-1750-flights-over-glitch-just-months-after-holiday-meltdown/