Southwest Airlines tech glitch impacts IND passengers
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Southwest Airlines on Tuesday was hit with another technical glitch.
Flights resumed after a brief nationwide “pause” delayed more than 1,800 flights months after an operation meltdown.
Indianapolis International Airport saw 28 flight delays, 48% of all of its delays on Tuesday.
Some passengers told News 8 that Southwest Airlines is generally a reliable airline, but the recent tech issues has raised some major concerns. “I’m a little weary. Yeah, for sure,” Mary Franklin said.
At Indianapolis International Airport, Southwest Airlines passengers were caught in the middle. “I looked up the app and I go ‘Uh-oh, it changed. It’s delayed.’ And so I’m going let’s, instead of messing with kiosks, we went right up there and she was really helpful. She said it could go back to the original,” Cynthia Maestretti said.
Franklin said, “I have flown before where I’ve had an eight-hour wait for the next flight, so I’m hoping that this will just be the 20 minutes or so they’re saying it’s going to be.”
Shortly after the delays started, the airline released a statement. “Southwest has resumed operations after temporarily pausing flight activity this morning to work through data connection issues resulting from a firewall failure.”
Maestretti, who was visiting Indiana, says the airline staff let her know what was going on. “That it was this computer that had gone down and, for here in Indianapolis, it had caught up, but the other computers cities connecting they hadn’t caught up yet.”
Franklin is raising concerns. “Because if it affects the aircrafts themselves that’s definitely a concern. Also, if there are big problems with the computer system they may cancel flights and that’s an issue.”
She was on her way to visit her family in Georgia. “They live about an hour and a half north from Atlanta, so they’re coming down to get me, so I’m hoping that it’s not going to get too messy.”
Southwest Airlines said via Twitter that it will work to accommodate impacted passengers.