Southwest Airlines hit hardest after FAA outage, adding to woes

Southwest Airlines Co. delayed more than 1,700 flights Wednesday, the most among US carriers, after a government system outage forced US aviation authorities to halt flights nationwide for several hours.

The delayed trips amounted to about 46% of Southwest’s schedule, according to data as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time from tracking service FlightAware. American Airlines Group Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. each delayed about a third of their planned flights, while 29% of United Airlines Holdings Inc.’s schedule was affected.

Southwest also canceled about 350 flights, according to FlightAware.

The carrier didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Its shares fell less than 1% at 11:42 a.m. in New York.

The disruptions add to Southwest’s woes after the Dallas-based carrier canceled more than 16,000 flights during a meltdown of its network last month. Severe storms overwhelmed the company’s scheduling system, leaving thousands of travelers stranded across the US, sometimes for days.