US Domestic Flights Were Delayed From FAA Outage & Customers Are Roasting Southwest For It
"Can y'all refund the time I'm missing out of my life?"
A Southwest plane landing.
This morning the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced on Twitter at 6:29 a.m. that there is an outage to their Notice to Air Missions System (NOTAM). As they work to restore it, the FAA issued all planes to be grounded and delayed until 9 a.m EST.
They are giving live updates on the social media app and wrote that all flights currently in the air are safe to land. The federal organization posted that the computer issue happened overnight.
They published a statement to their website that they are working to "validate the integrity of flight and safety information," the agency's statement reads.
The first departures to resume will be Newark and Atlanta because of the air traffic congestion in the areas. This update was announced at 8:15 a.m.
\u201cUpdate 4: The FAA is making progress in restoring its Notice to Air Missions system following an overnight outage. Departures are resuming at @EWRairport and @ATLairport due to air traffic congestion in those areas. We expect departures to resume at other airports at 9 a.m. ET.\u201d— The FAA \u2708\ufe0f (@The FAA \u2708\ufe0f) 1673436544
While flights are expected to be back on track shortly, this delay comes after a slew of cancellations over the holidays and Southwest airlines in particular has been doing their best to make their customers happy.
So, it comes as no surprise that people on Twitter are upset by more delayed travel, even if it isn't necessarily the company's fault.
The company published a press release that they are "closely monitoring" the data issue, and one commentator replied, "I know this is not a problem that falls solely on you, but damn. Can y’all refund the time I’m missing out of my life? I feel bad for the older folks with less time. Also maybe get a backup system? That might be too obvious of a plan..."
\u201c@SouthwestAir I know this is not a problem that falls solely on you, but damn. Can y\u2019all refund the time I\u2019m missing out of my life. I feel bad for the older folks with less time. Also maybe get a backup system? That might be too obvious of a plan\u2026\u201d— Southwest Airlines (@Southwest Airlines) 1673438590
Some people are just responding simply with "here we go again," with a face palm emoji.
One user asked if "Southwest’s antiquated system [will] be able to make all the necessary adjustments once the FAA’s NOTAM system is back up and running," and added a hashtag with the company name.
United Airlines also took to Twitter, updating their customers via tweets. The public responded fairly differently to their account. Many of them just inquiring about the issue. While others were posting updates on whether their flight was delayed or not.
In regards to Southwest, it's safe to assume customers are harboring a lot of feelings from the holidays still.
There is currently no evidence that the outage was a cyberattack, according to U.S. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Under President Biden's directions, the Department of Transportation will do a full investigation into what caused the issue.
\u201cThe President has been briefed by the Secretary of Transportation\u00a0this morning\u00a0on the FAA system outage. There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes.\u00a0The FAA will provide regular updates.\u201d— Karine Jean-Pierre (@Karine Jean-Pierre) 1673440754
Flights are still scheduled to be back on track by 9 a.m., according to the FAA.
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