Spirit Airlines passengers experienced systemwide delays on Thursday amid technology problems that disrupted its customer app, website and airport kiosk operations.
The problems apparently spilled into the Miramar-based discounter’s flight operations, delaying a number trips around the country. According to the tracking system FlightAware, 278 or 33% of the carrier’s flights were delayed Thursday morning. At Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Spirit accounted for the majority of the airport’s flight delays.
“We are currently experiencing a technical issue,” the airline said on its twitter account. “Spirit.com, the Spirit Airlines app and our airport kiosks are currently unavailable at this time.”
The airline also noted that it anticipated long lines at the airports it serves and advised passengers to arrive early.
About 11:30 a.m., the airline said it had resolved the problem and issued this statement: “We have resolved a network issue between third party services that affected our website, mobile app and some internal applications. We apologize for any delays and inconvenience, and we’re now working our way back to normal operations.”
Angry passengers tweeted from various locations to complain about flight delays, long waits aboard planes at terminals and few explanations from the company. Customer service representatives urged them to send direct messages with details about their individual situations.
The company’s media relations department did not immediately respond to a request for a detailed cause of the disruptions.
Spirit advised its customers to consult FlightAware about their flights’ status.
The airline, which has agreed to be acquired by JetBlue Airways of New York, is the latest carrier to experience technical issues that slowed flight operations.
Southwest Airlines blamed technology shortcomings for more than 2,000 delays across its system in April. The airline also suffered a wider failure over Christmas, apologized to the public and pledged to fix its problems. .
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has vowed to hold airlines accountable for the fair treatment of passengers when long delays or cancellations interrupt traveler plans. The Federal Aviation Administration — which oversees the nation’s air traffic control system — has also struggled through its own technical and staffing shortcomings.
Nonetheless, one Spirit passenger tweeted Thursday: “Someone call Buttigieg.”