Southwest Airlines System Failure Grounds Planes, Causes Headaches For Travelers

Southwest Airlines flights were grounded across the nation Wednesday afternoon following a computer system failure that also stranded travelers and frustrated customers trying to make purchases online.

In a statement to Patch, Southwest said systems are "gradually coming back online," but it will take "some time" before normal operations resume.

Here's the full statement emailed to Patch:

Southwest Airlines began experiencing intermittent performance issues earlier this afternoon with multiple technology systems as a result of an outage. We continue to manage significant flight delays across our system. We apologize to our Customers whose travel plans are impacted. We have a Team of experts working diligently to fully resolve the technical issues and their efforts have systems gradually coming back online. We expect to continue our move toward a normal operation but believe it will take time. Updates will be posted on swamedia.com, our Southwest Facebook page and Twitter accounts.

The airline tweeted that it was "investigating current issues with our systems" and was responding to angry customers across the country.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Images: Midway Airport, by Beth Torrence