Hundreds of flights cancelled after Southwest computer-related stoppage

Washington - Southwest delayed nearly 1,300 flights on Tuesday.

Southwest Airlines canceled nearly 300 flights Wednesday and delayed more than 500 a day after it was forced to temporarily halt operations over a computer glitch.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday it had issued a temporary nationwide groundstop at the request of Southwest Airlines to resolve a computer reservation issue.

"While our technology issues from Tuesday have been resolved, we are still experiencing a small number of cancellations and delays across our network as we continue working to resume normal operations," airline spokesman Dan Landson said.

Tuesday's groundstop lasted about 45 minutes, and ended at 2:30pm EDT Tuesday (1830 GMT), the FAA said.

FlightAware.com, a flight tracking website said Southwest had canceled 315 flights Wednesday through 2pm EDT, or 8 per cent of those scheduled, and delayed a further 562.