Southwest Airlines flights grounded after technology glitches

Southwest Airlines flights across the country were held up Wednesday while the airline worked to fix technology problems. Southwest began having intermittent problems with several systems after an outage. "We are now managing flight delays across our system, with a temporary ground stop in place for those flights that have not left the gate," a spokesman said. For about 3 hours, visitors to Southwest.com couldn't buy tickets, check in for flights, or check their flight's status. The site appeared to be working again by late afternoon. Southwest said that systems were gradually coming back, but that it might take time before the airline could resume normal operations. By about 5 pm Central time, Southwest had canceled 16 flights, more than any other US carrier, and delayed 245 others. <br/>