Southwest Airlines briefly grounds all flights due to 'technology issues'

Southwest Airlines briefly grounded all flights on Tuesday due to what it says is "intermittent technology issues," just months after the airline suffered from a major meltdown over the holiday season.

"As a result of the intermittent technology issues that we experienced, we should hopefully be resuming our operation as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but we're hoping to get everyone going ASAP," Southwest tweeted in response to one of many angry customers voicing complaints online after their flights were delayed.

The Federal Aviation Administration lifted the nationwide ground stop on Southwest later Tuesday morning, but the pause is still in place for Southwest flights at Dallas Love Field Airport, according to the agency.

The flights paused after Southwest "experienced a technical issue with one of their internal systems," the FAA also said. "At the airline’s request, the FAA paused Southwest’s departures as they resolved the issue. The pause has been lifted and their service has resumed."

Southwest is already being investigated by the Transportation Department after the airline experienced mass cancellations in late December.

More than 40% of Southwest flights Tuesday morning were delayed, according to the plane tracker FlightAware.com.

Madeleine Hubbard is an international correspondent for Just the News. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.