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An outage in Southwest Airlines service has resulted in huge delays at LAX, and the airline is advising travelers to arrive at least 2 hours before departure.
According to a post for the airline's blog:
We’re experiencing technology issues on southwest.com, the Southwest Mobile app, and in reservations centers and airports across our system today which are impacting future bookings and are requiring us to process Customers manually as they arrive for travel. We’re asking Customers to arrive at least two hours prior to their scheduled departures to help minimize delays. As of 1:00 p.m. CDT, nearly 300 flights have been delayed in departing, out of approximately 3600 flights scheduled to operate today.
The service outage is a nationwide issue, and is not just effecting LAX; delays have been reported at airports across the country, including Las Vegas, Nashville and LaGuardia
In the tweet below, the LA Airport Police reported that Southwest employees had resorted to issuing hand-written tickets:
Southwest Airlines is manual processing passengers and issuing hand-written tickets pic.twitter.com/kW7dcyUh86
— LA Airport PD (@LAAirportPD) October 11, 2015
One reporter heard that the system will be messed up through the rest of the day.
Some #Southwest Airlines customers say agents told them system will not likely be up today. @knx1070 pic.twitter.com/LwdYj4Sytk
— Ed Mertz (@edmertz_news) October 11, 2015
...but at least there's pizza?
Free pizza #Southwest lines #LAX @knx1070 System down computer problems pic.twitter.com/qrJJfBokv1
— Ed Mertz (@edmertz_news) October 11, 2015
Whoever's been running the Southwest Airlines Twitter account will definitely be earning their paycheck today.