Southwest Airlines was back to normal Tuesday afternoon following a rocky morning due to a computer glitch that caused thousands of flight delays.
The airline asked for a ground pause from the Federal Aviation Administration early Tuesday, as previously reported by The Dallas Express, delaying more than 2,000 flights, FlightAware said at the time.
No other airlines appeared to have been affected.
The ground pause started at 9:32 a.m. CDT but was lifted just minutes later at 10:10 a.m. CDT.
Southwest Airlines issued a press release at 10 a.m. to update people on the situation at the airport.
“Southwest has resumed operations after temporarily pausing flight activity this morning to work through data connection issues resulting from a firewall failure,” the press release read.
“Early this morning, a vendor-supplied firewall went down and connection to some operational data was unexpectedly lost. Southwest Teams worked quickly to minimize flight disruptions.”
As of 3 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, things at Dallas Love Field Airport appeared back to normal, although there was some evidence of leftover chaos with the presence of multiple news crews at the airport.
Michael Morrison of Kalamazoo, Michigan, was sitting on one of the airport benches because his flight to Grand Rapids from Chicago had been delayed.
“I arrived like an hour and 15 minutes past my departure of my connecting flight to Grand Rapids,” Morrison told The Dallas Express. “So now I gotta check with a family member to see if they’re willing to drive two and a half hours to pick me up in the a.m. hours and then drive back.”
Morrison said he has never had a flight delayed as a result of computer-related issues.
“Weather issues, sure, but not what we’re dealing with here,” he said.
Southwest Airlines has experienced a string of issues, especially since a holiday mishap caused chaos at the airport, as reported by The Dallas Express.
Thousands of flights were delayed during the busiest travel time of the year, prompting massive backlash from both Southwest Airlines customers and government officials.
The company was forced to issue refunds and spent weeks returning luggage after the incident.
