COLUMBUS, Ohio — Travelers nationwide and in Columbus were met with delays, cancelations and frustration Saturday as Southwest Airlines reported a system outage related to scheduled maintenance.
As of around 6:30 a.m., nearly 200 Southwest flights were canceled and nearly 400 were delayed nationwide, according to FlightAware.com.
As of 7:30 p.m. at John Glenn Columbus Internation Airport, seven arriving and departing flights were canceled while 21 flights were delayed earlier in the day.
Southwest Airlines provided a statement to 10TV, saying:
“Some of our earliest departing flights were delayed this morning, and a handful of them canceled, after we experienced intermittent technology issues following routine overnight maintenance. We offer heartfelt apologies to our Customers for any inconvenience, and gratitude to our employees who are working diligently to make it up to them. We’ll continue to update Customers whose journey with us today might be delayed as result of the now-resolved issues.”
While the issue affected airports nationwide, Southwest added that the system outage caused the most issues for customers in eastern and central time zones
The company responded to frustrated travelers on Twitter, apologizing and saying the issue appeared to be resolved.
However, the trickle-down effect had already begun with most Southwest Flights to and from John Glenn Columbus International Airport impacted in some way.
“Things just get changed and you have to roll with the punches, but we did drive for two and a half hours to have a direct flight and they had already changed our flight on the way back. Now, we have to stop with six kids and that’s just frustrating,” said Columbus traveler Rachel Michael.
You can check out whether your flight was delayed or canceled by clicking here.