Business & Tech

Few Delays Reported as Southwest Clears Logjam from Wednesday's Computer Outage

No cancellations were being reported

LOS ANGELES, CA - A few delays were reported Friday for Southwest Airlines flights at Los Angeles International Airport, as the airline continued to recover from a massive computer glitch that temporarily halted all of its flights.

According to the LAX website, four Southwest arrivals and four departures will be delayed Friday during a time frame extending through early afternoon, with all other flights either on time or early. No cancellations were being reported.

At Long Beach Airport, no arrivals will be delayed, and one departure will be delayed. At John Wayne Airport, 12 arriving flights were canceled, and 12 departing flights were canceled.

Find out what's happening in Marina Del Reyfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

The computer failure occurred around midday Wednesday, temporarily keeping all of the airline's flights grounded as technicians scrambled to get the systems back online. The problem was fixed by early afternoon, but the outage created a logjam of flights, prompting delays and cancellations across the nation.

About 700 Southwest flights were canceled nationally on Wednesday. By about 8 a.m. Thursday, more than 300 flights had been canceled, according to the airline. By mid-afternoon, that number rose to about 450.

Find out what's happening in Marina Del Reyfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

Southwest Airlines apologized to passengers for the problems, saying the airline will "continue to work individually with our affected customers to make this right."

Most of the airline's systems were back online Thursday, but flight problems continued as officials worked to manage the backlog.

"We are focused on getting customers and their baggage safely to their destinations and apologize to our customers whose travel plans are impacted," according to the airline. "Customers who are booked to travel should check flight status information on Southwest.com and plan to arrive at our airports early, as longer-than-average lines are likely. Flexible rebooking accommodation is available to customers who are holding tickets from Wednesday through Sunday."

City News Service, photo courtesy of Southwest