Technical issue causing delays for Southwest Airlines at McCarran, elsewhere

By Adwoa Fosu

Published Sunday, Oct. 11, 2015 | 11:11 a.m.

Updated Sunday, Oct. 11, 2015 | 5:56 p.m.

Customers flying Southwest Airlines today are being told to arrive at airports at least two hours before their scheduled departure time after a technical issue affected the airline's online and airport customer support services, Southwest said in a news release.

The issue requires customers to be processed manually, which is causing delays at many airports, including McCarran International Airport, the release said. As of 10 a.m., almost 250 flight departures had been delayed.

A tweet from McCarran International Airport around 10 a.m. reported "very long" check-in lines for Southwest as the technical issues continued. Another tweet stated that customers were provided water as staff worked to keep the lines orderly.

The Dallas-based company was seeing the problems that began Sunday morning continue into the evening. On its website, the company says it is still having "intermittent" technical issues on its website, mobile app and in its phone centers and airports check-in systems; it asks customers to use airport kiosks to print boarding passes and tags for luggage.

Representatives for Southwest did not say what caused the problem or how long it would take to resolve. Spokesman Brad Hawkins said there was "absolutely no indication now" that the problems were the result of hack.

Selena Springer of Seattle, Wash., said she arrived at McCarran around 1 p.m. to find a line of people "wrapped all the way around the check-in building."

It took her about three hours to get checked in for her 7:25 p.m. flight. She said she always arrives at the airport as early as possible just in case of events like this.

"The employees are doing the best they can," Springer said. "They're very courteous and waived the fees for my extra bags."

While many other passengers were vocal about their frustrations, Springer said she made the best of the situation by smiling and laughing with the people around her.

Some passengers, such as Susan Stark, were disappointed in the way the airline handled the situation, stating she did not receive any email or text notifications about the technical issues and was surprised to see such a long line of people waiting to check in when she arrived at the airport.

At Los Angeles International Airport earlier in the day, several dozen people crowded the Southwest terminal waiting to be issued hand-written tickets. By late afternoon, Southwest said about 450 of the 3,600 flights scheduled for the day had been delayed.

E.J. Schultz, a reporter for Ad Age who was taking a Southwest flight from Chicago's Midway Airport, said the airline was telling people at the gate that travelers with paper boarding passes were fine. But those who had downloaded their passes onto their mobile phones were told they had to stand in line, he said.

Schultz said he didn't understand why Southwest didn't announce that people should print out their boarding passes at home before getting to the airport.

"If everyone had done that, it would've saved so much time," he said.

Last month, American Airlines experienced computer problems that prevented passengers from checking in and briefly halted flights on select routes. Airline officials said at the time that they fixed the problem after less than two hours, and that there was no indication that its system had been hacked.

In July, hundreds of United Airlines flights were delayed after the airline experienced computer problems for the second time in just over a month. A United representative said at the time that the glitch was caused by an internal technology issue, and not an outside threat or hacker.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.