Southwest passengers face delays after nationwide grounding

By DAVID KOENIG
AP Airlines Writer

DALLAS (AP) — Southwest Airlines says planes are taking off again after departures were held up because of what the airline calls an intermittent technical problem. The Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday that Southwest requested that the agency pause the airline’s flights. The ground stop was brief, but it was causing nearly half of all Southwest flights to be delayed. Southwest says a firewall supplied by a vendor went down early Tuesday, and connection to some operational data was lost. The airline is going on Twitter to apologize to travelers whose flights are being delayed.