On October 10, 2026, Southwest Airlines’ information technology (IT) system experienced a sudden malfunction on Friday morning, October 9, leading to disruptions in the boarding process and baggage check-in, causing long queues of passengers at various airports.
According to data from the fault tracking website Downdetector, passengers began reporting issues from 8:00 am Eastern Time, with the number of fault reports peaking at around 659 at 8:55 am.
Subsequently, the number of fault reports gradually decreased, reaching single digits around 12:10 pm. However, as of 7:40 pm, there was still one fault report unresolved.
Reports from the New York Post on Friday revealed that following the IT system failure at Southwest Airlines, airports in states including California, Florida, Maryland, Ohio, Tennessee, and Utah experienced long queues of passengers and delays.
Passengers took to social media to report issues such as boarding gate staff being unable to scan boarding passes, check-in personnel resorting to handwritten baggage tags, passengers facing difficulties in online luggage fee payments, and encountering problems with using the Southwest Airlines mobile application.
A passenger in Denver mentioned that staff at their boarding gate announced a nationwide system failure, resulting in all flights that had not taken off being grounded. However, this statement conflicted with the airline’s official stance.
Southwest Airlines, the fourth-largest airline in the United States, has yet to specify the exact impact of this malfunction on flights and passengers.
A spokesperson for Southwest Airlines, in an email statement to Nexstar Media Group, attributed the disruption to a brief outage in the Amadeus IT service provider system. During the system’s full recovery, the airline resorted to manual processes for baggage check-in and boarding procedures.
Southwest Airlines also refuted claims circulating on social media about all flights being temporarily grounded. The spokesperson clarified that flights were not paused but the manual operation processes led to slower service.
The spokesperson further extended apologies to affected passengers, emphasizing that nothing is more important than the safety of passengers and employees, and the airline is working diligently to get them to their destinations promptly.
Amadeus IT Group is a global travel software provider utilized by multiple airlines for backend computer systems supporting ticket booking, check-in, boarding, and luggage services.
A spokesperson for Amadeus addressed the brief disruption affecting Southwest Airlines, attributing the technical issue to a third-party technology provider without disclosing the provider’s name.
The spokesperson mentioned that upon receiving incident reports, the company’s team took immediate action and collaborated closely with the provider to restore normal operations, expressing profound apologies for any inconvenience caused.