File photo.
At least one departing Southwest Airlines flight was reportedly delayed at the Long Beach Airport Friday after the airline experienced a massive computer glitch Wednesday that briefly halted all of its flights.
Southwest’s computer failure happened about midday Wednesday, temporarily forcing all of the airline’s flights to ground while technicians rushed to get the systems back online. By early afternoon the problem was fixed but the outage created a logjam of flights, prompting delays and cancellations across the country.
In Long Beach, one departure was apparently delayed. It was not immediately known where to and what time the flight was scheduled. Four Southwest arrivals and four departures were delayed Friday at Los Angeles International Airport,, according to LAX’s website. Twelve arriving flights and 12 departing flights were canceled at John Wayne Airport.
On Wednesday, about 700 Southwest flights were cancelled nationally. By Thursday morning, over 300 flights had been canceled, airline officials announced. By mid-afternoon, that number grew to about 450.
Passengers of the airline received apologies for the problems, with the airline saying it will “continue to work individually with our affected customers to make this right.”
On Thursday, most of Southwest’s systems were back online, 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.”
Southwest began serving the Long Beach Airport last month, and has since secured three additional temporary slots, which will fly passengers to Las Vegas, they announced this week.
City News Service contributed to this report.