Southwest Airlines lifted its brief ground stop on all of its departing flights Tuesday morning.
The FAA said Southwest Airlines "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."
Scripps News has sent a request for comment to Southwest Airlines. In response to a tweet from a customer, Southwest said, “We have had to implement a ground stop as a result of intermittent issues that were experienced, and we should hopefully be resuming our operation as soon as possible.”
Southwest later 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.
According to FlightAware, 36% of Southwest Airlines flights were delayed systemwide as of 11:30 a.m. ET.
The 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.
