Southwest Rapid Rewards - Most SWA computer systems down.

Virtually all computer systems are down a cross the network. At PDX now all kiosks down manual bag check and long lines to check in iPhone app is down too. Leaving late to OAK to get all passengers through the line.

Yup, just spoke to agent. All systems down.

Unbelievable. Wait... I mean totally believable.

Who's running WN's IT department? Monkeys?

Flight status appears to be working.

I wonder if the outage will cause massive flight delays this afternoon and evening.

Hoping this doesn't cause flight delays. I can't print out my boarding pass, and leaving to the airport soon. Hopefully everything is ok at airport.

Just took off from pdx on wi fi plane. Captain came on and said we were delayed even more because they had to do paperwork manually as their systems were down too.

Hoping this doesn't cause flight delays. I can't print out my boarding pass, and leaving to the airport soon. Hopefully everything is ok at airport.

I am now able to check-in online. Maybe a good sign of things to come?

Edit: I got my boarding pass to print, but I can no longer check-in online. Perhaps it's hit or miss?

Umm...yeah...airline computers being down mean manual check-in, manual flight paperwork, lots of phone calls rather than a few keystrokes which all lead to...you guessed it...MASSIVE DELAYS! :D

Unbelievable. Wait... I mean totally believable.

Who's running WN's IT department? Monkeys?

Actually, monkeys can be trained to do basic tasks. Apparently not the case with WNs IT staff.

Still down at 5:06 pm central time when trying to make reservations from MKE to LAS.

Just left CMH. Hand-written BPs and stand-by lists. Gate agents had no idea how many people had boarded the flight I was on stand-by for. They had to manually count BPs and then go onboard for a head count. The plus of it all is that the gate agent said not to worry about paying any fare differences for stand-bys. This was the least of their worries! :)

And Still down ... guess I won't be making my flight reservation on WN today.

[A rather funny, albeit extremely violent, scene from History of Violence came to mind when I got the error message. "How do you #&@$ that up?" Bang!]

What a mess.

No flight delay but the line ran the entire length of Terminal 1 in Las Vegas. Thank heavens for A+ status!!!

How long was the A-List/BS line at las relative to normal (usually no line)? What about our friends upstairs with the TSA? I assume lots a folks were tightly pinched for time after the mess downstairs.....

Thankfully I flew DL today. I had the afternoon IND-PHX flight on WN, but cancelled for an earlier arrival on DL. The WN terminal at PHX looked like a mess when I drove by.

How long was the A-List/BS line at las relative to normal (usually no line)? What about our friends upstairs with the TSA? I assume lots a folks were tightly pinched for time after the mess downstairs.....

Arrived at SMF at ~12:45 pm (Pacific Time) for a 1:50 flight. Had boarding pass, but needed to check a bag. The regular line consumed all the crowders, probably 200+ travelers. Headed for the A+ line, which had ~20. They asked if anybody had a boarding pass, so I was ushered immediately to the agent and received a manually written luggage tag. All the others in line needed a boarding pass.

Note that there were a lot of frequent travelers at this time, since Thursday afternoon is the traditional go-home time for state legislators and the associated lobbyists.

Flight was posted as "on time," but arrived about 5 minutes late. It left 25 minutes late.

At the time, I thought it was a local SMF computer problem.

Learned later that it was systemwide.

Talk about an absolute mess..

I was at TPC Sawgrass today and had an evening flight JAX to BWI. Tried to check in with my smartphone app and couldn't get through.. Got the JAX about 45 mins before my flight to find a long line at the kiosks.. They weren't working either. Attendant at the desk was having to REBOOT HER TERMINAL every couple minutes in hope of being able to print out boarding passes for a lot of angry customers.

Hmm, I flew out of MDW today at 7:30p and didn't realize anything was amiss. Checked in and pushed right on time without delay (aside from waiting at security).

How odd. I got to Stl ( St. Louis ) today around 6:00pm. Everything was working fine with no signs of unusual crowds or lines. No indication that anything had been wrong.

No flight delay but the line ran the entire length of Terminal 1 in Las Vegas. Thank heavens for A+ status!!!

Was caught in this yesterday (was in LAS for a mtg & one of the mtg planners announced there was a problem w/the WN computers around 1). I was actually surprised at how quickly that line actually did move, given its size. Line upstairs to the ABC gates took nearly 30 minutes to the ID checker; screener pacing backing & forth did make comments about the handwritten BPs-not sure what he thought the alternative option was :rolleyes: Left about 10 minutes late thanks to late arriving bags.

How long was the A-List/BS line at las relative to normal (usually no line)? What about our friends upstairs with the TSA? I assume lots a folks were tightly pinched for time after the mess downstairs.....

Sorry slow response; I was on the 4:30 PM flight to SNA. There were maybe 4 people in front of me in the Fly By Lane. I did get a few unfriendly looks as I bypassed the horrendously long line. TSA was surprisingly fast but the gatekeeper checking eligibility for the security Fly By lane was exceptionally flustered!!!

website now down as well?

Hmm, I flew out of MDW today at 7:30p and didn't realize anything was amiss. Checked in and pushed right on time without delay (aside from waiting at security).

I am currently on WiFi BUR->SJC and had used a kiosk @ 10:30a to get my BS boarding pass. All went smooth, pushed back 1m late @ 11:01 but we were 1 of 2 WN flights held for 20M on taxi before takeoff.

Nothing seemed unusual except for a really full flight and the 20m delay. Perhaps the previous flight/connections that were headed for SJC got tangled up. All the BS slots were full for this flight and that's unusual too actually.

As we rolled out we did seem to rotate around a tad more away from the direction of LAX so maybe POTUS was rolling out.

Actually, monkeys can be trained to do basic tasks. Apparently not the case with WNs IT staff.

This headline was in Thursday's San Jose Mercury News:

iPrimate: Orangutans at Miami zoo use iPads to communicate

So, referencing my original post above, perhaps WN should consider some of these tech-savvy simians as replacements for current IT staff. Maybe the Dallas Zoo has some primates with similar skills; WN could develop some sort of work-study program.