Computer glitch grounds Southwest flights nationwide
RALEIGH-DURHAM INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (WTVD) -- Southwest Airlines experienced major technical problems Wednesday, grounding flights across the country.
A spokesperson with the company said Southwest began having intermittent problems with several systems after an outage.
Southwest posted this statement online Wednesday afternoon:
"Southwest Airlines began experiencing intermittent performance issues earlier this afternoon with multiple technology systems as a result of an outage. We are now managing flight delays across our system, with a temporary ground stop in place for those flights that have not left the gate. We apologize to our Customers whose travel plans are impacted. We have a Team of experts working diligently to resolve the technical issues and their efforts have systems gradually coming back online. We expect to continue our move toward a normal operation but believe it will take time. Updates will be posted on swamedia.com, our Southwest Facebook page and Twitter accounts."
Spokesman Brad Hawkins said that systems were gradually coming back, but that it might take time before the airline could resume normal operations.
Anxious customers tweeted to Southwest that they could not check in for flights. The airline's website wasn't working normally - visitors couldn't buy tickets, check in for flights, or check their flight's status.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
