Computer woes cause more Southwest delays
For second straight day, airline’s computer outage leads to delays and flight cancellations.
After waiting three hours at the Dallas Love Field airport, Dallas resident Robin Finney ended up calling Southwest Airlines, canceling her Thursday flight and leaving the airport.
“I was flying (to Austin) for a meeting, which I missed,” Finney said. Her flight eventually left without her at 2 p.m.
Finney was one of thousands of Southwest customers who experienced delayed or canceled flights over the past two days as the airline struggled to recover from a massive computer outage that began Wednesday.
At Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, about 23 flights were canceled or delayed each day, spokesman Jim Halbrook said.
“Austin’s airport is an origin and destination airport, so we’re not a connecting hub . ... It’s not like you’re stuck in a hub airport that you don’t even know how to get out of,” Halbrook said.
Halbrook said he was not aware of many people having to sleep at the Austin airport. Still, he urged anyone taking a flight on any airline to check the flight’s status at the airport’s website (www. abia.org) or by calling the specific airline.
Airline executives said that a router breakdown set off a chain of failures in critical technology systems on Wednesday, but that the technology systems were “stabilized and performing normally” on Thursday. However, the airline still canceled 220 flights, about 5 percent of its schedule, on Thursday to prevent the problem from compounding.
Southwest officials recommend that customers look into rebooking flights on a day after Sunday. Customers will have two weeks from their original date of departure to rebook at the original fare.