Southwest Airlines’ technology issues slows travel for some at Dallas Love Field

A nationwide ground stop was issued for Dallas-based Southwest Airlines on Tuesday morning.
The airline says an “intermittent technology issue” caused Southwest to temporarily pause flight operations nationwide.
The ground stop was issued by the FAA at the request of Southwest Airlines, and while it was lifted fairly quickly it is another incident that puts Southwest where it doesn’t want to be.
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“First they told us thirty minutes and then another thirty minutes and like before you know it was an hour,” said Southwest passenger Thelma Webb.
Webb was on a plane from Midland, ready to take off when the FAA issued the ground stop.
“They did let us go after the first thirty minutes. They said we could go ahead and step out if we wanted to get something to eat and come back in thirty minutes, but when we did the pilot came out and said it’s going to be another thirty minutes,” said Webb.
Southwest said they experienced a technical issue with one of their internal systems.
“Essentially an outside influence coming in through a computer program, through a firewall,” said Ron McCallum a commercial corporate pilot and attorney. “You can think of that from a vehicle on its origins getting through to a nerve center at Southwest Airlines caused enough concern to have a ground stop halting all operations.”
More than 1,800 flights were delayed nationwide.
Tuesday’s delays were not nearly as damaging as what happened in December. Southwest was stuck with 17,000 cancelations in just a week and a half.
“I mean this is their origin after all, and with every problem comes erosion of trust, comes erosion of responsibility and accountability plus safety,” said McCallum.
“I’m terrified of flying, so this made it a little bit worse because of the delay,” said Southwest passenger Christina Rendon.
“Hopefully they will get this fixed. They are very reliable usually, and they are very much relied upon by the business traveling public and of course everyone getting ready to go on vacation,” said McCallum.
The flight delay was not all bad for everyone. Candace Gray was late getting to her Houston to Dallas flight.
“I thought I was going to be late and not get my bags, but I got there and had time to go get breakfast and everything,” said Gray.