Southwest Airlines ended up delaying and canceling hundreds of flights on Wednesday — for the third straight day — as the company looked to fix some internal issues, according to multiple reports.
Southwest delays, cancellations on Tuesday and Wednesday
The New York Times reports that Southwest has been suffering from its own technological problems that caused a delay Tuesday, which carried over into Wednesday.
- Per Business Insider, Southwest delayed more than 500 flights — or about 15% of its flight schedule. And Southwest canceled more than 275 flights, which is about 8% of the flight schedule.
- “While our technology issues from Tuesday have been resolved, we are still experiencing a small number of cancellations and delays across our network as we continue working to resume normal operations,” Dan Landson, a Southwest spokesman, said in a statement to The New York Times.
Why were Southwest flights delayed Monday?
Southwest Airlines flights were delayed and canceled on Monday due to a weather data outage, which appears to be different than the issues the airline suffered on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to Deseret News. Several flights were grounded because of the weather data problem, too.
- “While Southwest teams and the vendor worked to restore connectivity, we implemented a ground stop to protect the safety of our crews and customers,” Landson told NPR.
What should you do if your flight is canceled?
Southwest said customers who face cancellations and delays should review the airline’s website for an update on flight status.
Contacting customer service might take some time because there are a lot of people reaching out right now, per Business Insider.