by Donald Wood
Last updated: 10:16 AM ET, Thu July 21, 2016
Photo by Paul Thompson
Early Thursday, Southwest Airlines was forced to cancel and delay hundreds of additional flights after a computer system outage caused the cancellation of an estimated 700 flights on Wednesday.
According to CBSNews.com, Southwest Airlines has resolved the computer outage and is now in the process of catching up after so many flights were delayed or canceled. Unfortunately, the airline expects delays throughout Thursday and into Friday while it attempts to get all of its pilots, crews and planes to the places they need to be in order to make up for lost time.
According to FlightAware.com as of 8:45 a.m. ET, there were 204 flights canceled for Thursday and another 113 flights delayed. The issues with the Southwest Airlines computers also caused major congestion inside airports across the United States, as terminals were filled with angry and disappointed customers.
Officials from Southwest Airlines announced that its teams worked around the clock to resolve the issues with the computer system outage as quickly as possible. The issues began Wednesday afternoon, which caused a temporary ground stop for flights that had not left the gate.
Southwest shared details of the ordeal on its official Twitter account:
"I want to start off by once again apologizing to our Customers and reiterating that your experience throughout the past 24 hours is not the service you should expect from Southwest Airlines," Southwest Airlines said in a statement released on its website. "Most of our systems are back online this morning following yesterday's technology outages, but recovery will take some time. We expect some cancellations and delays as we position aircraft and crews."
"As of 6:30 a.m. CDT, we have canceled more than 221 flights and continue to manage the flight disruptions across our system," Southwest Airlines said. "Our Employees are the best in the business, and they are working extremely hard to get you and your luggage to your destination. Thank you for hanging in there with us. We will have more information later regarding flexible rebooking, and we will continue to work with each and every affected Customer to make this right."
This isn't the first time Southwest Airlines has faced major issues surrounding a delay. Last October, an estimated 800 Southwest flights were delayed when a software application malfunctioned, forcing employees to issue tickets and boarding passes by hand.
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