SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Southwest Airlines flights in and out of San Diego International Airport, and across the U.S., were delayed Tuesday morning due to a technical issue, prompting a nationwide ground stop.
Just after 7:30 a.m., the Federal Aviation Administration’s Twitter account stated, “Southwest Airlines requested the FAA pause the airline’s departures. Please contact Southwest Airlines for more.”
In response to a customer tweet, Southwest tweeted, "Technical errors are unexpected and inconvenient for all, and you have our sincere apologies."
As of 7:45 a.m., San Diego International Airport’s Flight Status website showed dozens of Southwest arrivals and departures as “DELAYED.”
By 8:10 a.m., the FAA provided this update on their Twitter account: This morning @SouthwestAir experienced a technical issue with one of their internal systems. At the airline’s request, the FAA paused Southwest’s departures as they resolved the issue. The pause has been lifted and their service has resumed.”
The airline said in a statement, “Southwest has resumed operations after temporarily pausing flight activity this morning to work through data connection issues resulting from a firewall failure. Early this morning, a vendor-supplied firewall went down and connection to some operational data was unexpectedly lost.”
Southwest apologized for the issue and said customers affected by Tuesday's delays can rebook in the original class of service or travel standby within 14 days of their original date of travel between the original city-pairs and in accordance with its accommodation procedures without paying any additional charge.
Tuesday's flight delays came after Southwest experienced significant disruptions in December in the wake of a massive winter storm and extreme cold during the Christmas holiday. The company delayed nearly 60% of its flights for a week-long period.
Southwest acknowledged in December that system failures were partially to blame after the airline struggled to resume normal operations after the storm.
Scripps News contributed to this report
