Skip to main content

Southwest Airlines Says Sale Response Overwhelmed System



Southwest Airlines Co.'s website is slowing to a crawl, and the airline blames heavy response to a sale on fall travel.
Visitors to southwest.com late Wednesday afternoon saw a "system alert" warning that "you may experience difficulty" on the site. When one visitor tried to book a trip, there was no immediate response from the site, and eventually the screen flipped to a "Gateway Timeout."
Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King said the airline added capacity to the website in anticipation of high demand from a 3-day sale that began Tuesday, but the response was bigger than expected. King said workers were trying to restore the website's functions. She said customers could try later or call the airline for help.
The sale included prices as low as $49 one-way on short trips to $149 each way for long trips, and covered travel between Aug. 25 and Dec. 16. Like most airline sales, there were many conditions including blackout dates around Labor Day and Thanksgiving, and Southwest didn't say how many seats would be available at the sale prices.
American Airlines and United Airlines confirmed that they matched Southwest's fares on routes where they compete.
Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com, said Delta, Alaska, Virgin America and Frontier also had fares matching Southwest on overlapping routes, although he added that it was "hard to tell who matched and who initiated" because there were so many new fares filed on Tuesday. The first week in June is a perennial time for fall-travel sales, he said.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Who Is Zuleyka Rivera? 5 Things To Know About The ‘Despacito’ Actress

With ‘Despacito’ up for Record of the Year at the 2018 Grammy Awards, here’s everything you need to know about the music video’s actress — Zuleyka Rivera! 1. She’s a renowned beauty queen.  Not only did she claim the Miss Universe Puerto Rico title, Zuleyka eventually took the top prize and was later crowned Miss Universe in 2006. 2. After her huge Miss Universe win, she studied acting and eventually became a TV star.  She now lives in Miami where she’s frequently a special guest or a host on shows like  Un Nuevo Dia  on Telemundo and  Despierta America  on Univision. Before that, she became a breakout star by appearing on several Televisa soap operas in Mexico. 3. In addition to modeling, she also owns her own clothing line.  On top of running her own teen-ware clothing collection, she also has three fragrance lines called the Karisma, Zuleyka and Zuleyka 2010. If that wasn’t impressive enough, she also started an amazing swims...

Frank Ocean new album: How to listen and stream Boys Don’t Cry when it drops

After two missed release dates a year apart and a confusing decoy of a “live stream” video, Frank Ocean is set to finally release his second album,  Boys Don’t Cry , on Friday 5 August. It will be launched through an exclusive deal with Apple Music, according to the  New York Times , who cite a ‘person with knowledge of the release plans’. If indeed this is the case (and it would make sense, that live stream has an Apple watermark), it means you’ll need to sign up for Apple Music to listen to the  Channel Orange  follow-up, which costs £9.99 a month (£4.99 for students through Apple’s UNiDAYS promotion). You might want to turn off auto-renewal off though (Apple Music app > profile icon > View Apple ID. > Subscriptions > Manage > switch Auto-Renewal off), if you’re the kind of person who, like me, is liable to forget that you’ve signed up for the service indefinitely. Beyond Apple Music...

Celine Dion Gives a Tearful Interview After Her 2016 Billboard Music Awards Performance: "Music Is Extremely Therapeutic"

As  CĆ©line Dion  sang, "The Show Must Go On"—and go on it did. At the  2016 Billboard Music Awards  Sunday, the 48-year-old diva brought down the house with her cover of  Queen 's "The Show Must Go On." Celine received a standing ovation inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, and to top it off, she received the ICON Award from her 15-year-old son,  RenĆ©-Charles AngĆ©lil . A surprised and emotional Celine thanked her fans, family, children, and "most importantly," her late husband  RenĆ© AngĆ©lil , "who I know will continue to watch over me from above." Celine added, "RenĆ©, this one's for you. The show must go on." Celine then made her way backstage to do interviews, but paused to watch  Madonna  and  Stevie Wonder 's tribute to  Prince . She danced, sang along and snapped her fingers as they performed"Nothing Compares 2 U" (which Prince wrote  SinĆ©ad O'Connor ) and "Purple Rain." Afterward, C...