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Southwest Airlines Computer Outage Causes Delays, Cancellations

Southwest jet at the gate at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport in December 2011.
Karen Bleier
/
AFP/Getty Images
Southwest jet at the gate at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport in December 2011.

Southwest Airlines says some of its Saturday flights will still be affected by a network computer outage that snarled check-ins, forcing the cancellation of more than a dozen flights and temporarily grounding some 250 others – mostly on the West Coast.

Although the carrier's computer system was back up and running after Friday's problems, Southwest says there was still a backlog that could cause flight delays.

The outage cropped up late Friday, affected check-in operations, the printing of boarding passes and access to departure information, The Associated Press says.

"Our system was brought back fully online around midnight Los Angeles time," spokeswoman Michele Agnew told the AP.

Southwest was forced to cancel 14 flights systemwide, she said, but none in the Los Angeles area.

On Friday, Southwest Airlines communications manager Brad Hawkins said of 3,400 flights nationwide, about 250 flights, mostly out West, were experiencing delays because of the computer problems.

He stressed that "None of it is safety-related."

In a statement on Saturday, the airline said it was "working hard to accommodate those impacted and encourage our Customers to check their flight status prior to arriving to the airport."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Scott Neuman is a reporter and editor, working mainly on breaking news for NPR's digital and radio platforms.

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