The hold on departures was lifted by late morning, according to Southwest and the Federal Aviation Administration, but not before traffic at airports from Denver to New York City backed up.
By midday on the East Coast, more than 40% of all Southwest flights were delayed, and the airline accounted for nearly two-thirds of all delays nationwide. On the positive side, Southwest had only about a dozen flights canceled, in line with other major airlines, according to FlightAware. “It was a 17-minute ground stop. This will have no long-lasting affect on Southwest's reputation,” said Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst with Atmosphere Research Group. “What matters now for Southwest is getting to the cause and doing all it can to ensure incidents like this don't occur again.”
Those cancellations cost the airline more than $1 billion and led to an ongoing Transportation Department investigation.
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