Southwest Airlines delayed over 1,200 flights nationally on Friday morning after a thirty-party software for checking baggage and boarding passengers went offline.
A spokesperson for the Dallas-based airline told KERA in a statement the software, Amadeus, is back up and running as of 12:30 p.m. Friday.
“Due to the early hour, we were able to minimize the effect on the operation the rest of the day,” the spokesperson said.
The 1,200 delays account for 27% of all the airline’s flights, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. About 40 flights were cancelled.
Dallas Love Field, where Southwest is headquartered, had about 95 delays and 7 cancellations.
Lauren Rounds, a spokesperson for Dallas’ aviation department, said in a statement Southwest had experienced an “intermittent, internal network outage as of this morning, impacting boarding pass printing and mobile app scanning.”
The airline has had more serious software troubles in the past.
In 2022, 16,500 flights were cancelled during a winter storm after the airline’s technology struggled to keep up with scheduling and crew coordination.
The following year, the airline had to halt all departures for an hour after a network firewall failure.
Dylan Duke is KERA’s breaking news reporter. Got a tip? Email Dylan at dduke@kera.org.
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