Southwest Airlines ground stop lifted

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday afternoon lifted a Southwest Airlines ground stop that was issued after the company had a technology-related issue for the second straight day.

By midafternoon, the nation’s fourth-largest airline had canceled about 500 flights and delayed nearly 1,300 others, according to tracking service FlightAware. The combination of cancellations and delays affected about half of Southwest’s planned flights for the day.

Spokesman for Dallas-based Southwest said a problem with connectivity of the airline’s technology systems started around midday Tuesday.

Southwest tweeted at 2 p.m. that it was experiencing “system issues” and was “working quickly to resolve” them.

The FAA announced shortly before 3 p.m. that it was issuing a temporary nationwide ground stop at the request of Southwest while the company resolved a reservation computer issue. Nearly 1.5 hours later, the FAA said the Southwest ground stop had been lifted.

At 3:50 p.m. Southwest tweeted: “We are in the process of resuming normal operations after a system issue this afternoon that created flight disruptions throughout our network.” The airline said it was working to assist customers.

As of about 6:30 p.m., according to the Jacksonville International Airport website, one flight to JAX had been canceled and other arrivals, as well as departures, had been delayed.

Tuesday was the second day in a row that Southwest Airlines flights were impacted by a technology-related problem. On Monday night, problems with a third-party weather data provider caused Southwest to delay about 1,500 flights.