Dallas, TX- Southwest Airlines planes were grounded on Tuesday after what was said to be intermittent technology issue.
The grounding lead to 1,800 delayed flights, coming after a larger meltdown during the Christmas holiday.
The hold was lifted by the late morning, traffic had already backed up at many airports, reports say.
“Southwest has resumed operations after temporarily pausing flight activity this morning to work through data connection issues resulting from a firewall failure,” the Dallas-based airline said in a prepared statement. “Early this morning, a vendor-supplied firewall went down and connection to some operational data was unexpectedly lost.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg retweeted an FAA post about the ground stop, adding, “We are here to ensure passengers have strong protections when airline failures like this affect their plans.” He referred travelers to a Transportation Department checklist of passenger rights, and his press secretary pointed out that “no other airlines experienced disruptions.”
This airline is asking for patience as Southwest has experienced multiple technology issues, in the past.
CEO Robert Jordan has and is wanting to repair the airlines reputation. He has already embarked in a campaign to fix this.