Southwest Airlines is resuming operations after the airline briefly halted departures due to a “technical issue” this morning, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Although operations have resumed, there may be flight delays as a result of the pause.
“This morning SouthwestAir experienced a technical problem with one of its internal systems,” the FAA said in a Cheep. “At the airline’s request, the FAA halted Southwest departures while they resolved the issue. The pause was lifted and his service resumed.
FlightAware indicates that nearly 2,500 of Southwest’s flights on Tuesday morning, representing about 30% of their schedule for the day, were delayed.
The latest outage comes months after Southwest canceled more than 16,700 flights in December due to changes to its staff’s scheduling computer systems. problems cost Southwest over $1 billion and frustrated thousands of travelers during the busy holiday travel season. The Department of Transportation opened an investigation into the airline in response to the widespread outage. At the time, the airline said it had taken steps to prevent another widespread outage.
Southwest conducted a review with the aviation consulting firm Oliver Wyman to determine ways to prevent another such situation. Upon review, the airline technology introduced updates to crew reassignment software, weather alert panels, communication systems and more as part of $1.3 billion plan to increase its operational resilience.
Southwest Airlines did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.