Southwest Airlines Website Fails During Holiday Travel Week

Southwest Airlines’s website failed Tuesday, blocking access to booking and flight check-in tools in a busy holiday travel week, according to Bloomberg. The failure affected all customers but didn’t have any impact on flights, the Dallas-based carrier said.

Southwest told passengers via Twitter to check in using airport kiosks or ticket counters. Customers hurt by the interruption and traveling through Dec. 21 could change their plans without paying a fee, the airline said. Messages to individual customers on Twitter suggested the website issues started by about 1:00 p.m. The site was back online in at least some markets by the late afternoon.

Southwest was one of three U.S. airlines that suffered a similar disruption on Oct. 17 when technical difficulties with Sabre computer systems prevented reservations from being made on websites. Southwest also struggled in July after a router and its backup system failed, crashing the airline’s computer systems. The disruption lasted about 12 hours, and flight cancellations and delays continued for several days as the airline worked to get crews and planes in the right locations.