Southwest Airlines Ground Stop: Achieves 4,000 Weekly Movements

The Image Above: Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-800. Image Credit: PlanespotterA320 via Wikimedia Commons.

Southwest Airlines had a ground stop put in place today due to equipment issues. Despite this, the carrier has reached the 4,000 weekly flights milestone, based on data from RadarBox.com.

The nationwide stop has now been confirmed by the carrier, with the cause being described as “intermittent technology issues.”

According to data from RadarBox, over 1,200 flights, or roughly 30% of the US airline’s flight schedule, have been disrupted by the problem.

The FAA has confirmed that they have been requested by the airline to pause all departures.

Surpassing 4,000 Weekly Movements...

The Image Above: Southwest Airlines Movement Statistics, Courtesy of RadarBox.com.

For April 23-30, which is the equivalent of this week, the airline is expected to handle 4,171 flights, based on a seven-day rolling average provided by RadarBox.

This represents an increase of 18.33% compared to the same period last year, where 3,525 movements were recorded. 

Below is the last four weeks' worth of data for the carrier:

What the data shows is that Southwest Airlines has been performing comfortably above pre-pandemic levels in the same periods in 2023 thus far.

However, with today's outage, the numbers could very well dip for a temporary moment, especially if this problem continues into the days and weeks ahead.