Southwest fixes technology issue that delayed Sunday flights

The Dallas company had been warning passengers flying today to arrive at the airport two hours early and print boarding passes beforehand.

The airline announced a nationwide computer glitch has been resolved, and that operations were returning to normal. “After a challenging Sunday for our Employees and Customers, we’re expecting the technical systems that power our Customer Service to perform normally today”. It is still unclear what exactly caused the disastrous issue, although, according to Southwest, it was not the work of hackers.

The latest troubles to hit travelers involved Southwest Airlines over the weekend, when problems with its ticketing system led to massive lines and long delays at airports across the country.

Rick Seaney, a representative of farecompare.com, told NBC DFW said the rapid growth of the major airlines through consolidation has strained the computer systems.

There were said to be “technical challenges” on their applications that delayed 450 of the 3600 Sunday flights, Southwest Airline Media announced on their website. We’re asking Customers to arrive at least two hours prior to their scheduled departures to help minimize delays.

Schultz said he didn’t understand why Southwest didn’t announce that people should print out their boarding passes at home before getting to the airport.

Southwest Airlines Co. carries more than 100 million passengers a year within the United States, more than any other airline. Computer outages affected Spirit Airlines in July as well, forcing the carrier to cancel 16 flights in and out of O’Hare. Hundreds of Southwest flights got delayed on October. 11 thanks to technology problems.

Technical difficulties had Southwest Airlines agents reverting back to the days of paper boarding passes and manual check-ins.