200 Southwest Airlines flights delayed after nationwide computer glitch

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Southwest Airlines jets were flying again on Thursday but delays continued as crews continued to manage flight disruptions caused by a computer glitch on Wednesday.

More than 200 flights remained canceled as Southwest tried to catch up with the backlog.

The airline posted a message with communications officer Linda Rutherford overnight on Twitter, asking customers to be "as patient as possible" while it works to bring the systems back up through the morning hours.

Rutherford said, "We are working really, really hard to try and re-accommodate customers and get them where they ultimately want to go. I would expect as we bring our operational systems back up, we may be looking at some challenges in the morning as well. Certainly, we want everyone to be as patient as possible while we work to restore the operation."

On Wednesday, computer problems forced Southwest Airlines to issue a ground stop for all flights. The outage was being blamed for about 700 canceled flights across the country.

The stop was eventually lifted, but delays continued to frustrate customers at Los Angeles International Airport.

"They gave us a $200 voucher for a hotel, but the problem is all the hotels are booked. So we didn't really have a place to stay, so we just kind of crashed in the airport," said passenger Max Kowalcek.

Southwest Airlines suggested that all customers check their flight status on Southwest.com and plan to arrive at the airport even earlier than usual.