Thursday, June 4, 2015

Southwest Airlines website down after fare sale 2015 overwhelms

Southwest Airlines website down after fare sale 2015 overwhelms
Southwest Airlines is having a fare sale and response has overwhelmed the company's website.
The Associated Press - Southwest Airlines has extended its nationwide fare sale by another 24 hours. The move comes as the carrier's website has bogged down from bargain-seekers flocking to the site. Southwest.com started showing persistent slowness – and even error messages – Wednesday afternoon.

The sale launched Tuesday and had been scheduled to end at midnight Thursday (June 4), but Southwest say that's now been extended to Friday to give customers more time to take advantage of the sale.




Heavy traffic spurred by a fare sale has swamped Southwest Airlines' website for a second day, leaving many customers unable to book flights.

The airline is extending the sale by one day, through Friday, to give frustrated customers more time to buy tickets.

The website problems started Wednesday, a day after Southwest announced a fall-travel fare sale.

On Thursday morning, some customers trying to book flights online are getting a message telling them that part of the website "is undergoing maintenance and is currently unavailable." The message directs people to call Southwest's toll-free number, but a reporter who did that got a busy signal.

Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King said that the 800 number was working, but call volume was high.

The airline boosted the website's capacity before announcing a three-day sale on Tuesday, but demand was greater than expected, King said. Technicians were trying to restore full function to the website, and Southwest extended the end of the sale — it was scheduled to end at midnight Thursday — through Friday, she said.

The sale features prices as low as $49 one-way on some short trips between Aug. 25 and Dec. 16, with blackout dates on Fridays and Sundays and around Labor Day and Thanksgiving. Southwest didn't say how many seats were available at the sale fares. Other airlines said they matched Southwest prices on routes where they compete.

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