FAA briefly grounds all Southwest Airlines flights nationwide

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted a nationwide ground stop for Southwest Airlines flights that they issued Tuesday morning citing “technical issues.”

Around 10.30 am EST, Southwest Airlines “request the FAA pause their airline departures” according to a Twitter post from the FAA.

In a statement provided to The Independent, the FAA said the pause was due to “an internal technical issue at Southwest.”

The sudden delay in flights caused frustration from Southwest fliers who flooded Twitter with complaints and concerns about their flight status.

Southwest Airlines responded to tweets saying they were having “intermittent technology issues” and were hopeful their operations would resume “as soon as possible.”

By 11.10 am EST, the pause was lifted and service resumed. The FAA confirmed the pause had been “fully cancelled” by noon.

Southwest said they “resumed operations after temporarily pausing flight activity this morning to work through data connection issues resulting from a firewall failure,” in a statement to The Independent.

“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. We ask that travelers use Southwest.com to check flight status or visit Southwest Airlines Customer Service Agents at the airport for assistance with travel needs,” Southwest Airlines said.

Southwest Airlines said they “appreciate the patience” of their customers and employees during the “brief disruption.”

The debacle comes just four months after the airline experienced a scheduling crisis that caused more than 15,000 flights to become cancelled during the holiday season.

Southwest Airlines pause on departures has been fully canceled. Earlier this morning, Southwest requested that FAA pause Southwest departures due to an internal technical issue at Southwest.

The event led to US Department of Transportation to investigate the airline and the Senate Commerce Committee to hold a hearing on it.

The scheduling crisis was attributed to the airline growing too quickly during the pandemic and failing to update technology combined with a lack of support to recover cancelled flights.