Southwest Passengers Face Delays After Nationwide Grounding

DALLAS (AP) — Southwest Airlines says planes are taking off again after departures were held up because of what the airline calls an intermittent technical problem.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday only that Southwest requested the pause on flights, and referred questions to the Dallas-based airline.

The airline says a firewall supplied by a vendor went down early Tuesday, and connection to some operational data was lost.

The airline is going on Twitter to apologize to travelers whose flights are being delayed.