Southwest Falls Back to Manual Boarding as Amadeus Outage Slows More Than 1,200 Flights

Airways reports that Southwest Airlines switched to manual baggage and boarding procedures on 9 October 2026 during an outage affecting its Amadeus passenger service system, with more than 1,200 flights reported delayed. Southwest told Nexstar that airport staff checked bags and boarded passengers by hand while service was restored, and described the disruption as brief, saying flights slowed rather than halted. FlightAware figures cited by KERA showed delays on roughly 27% of Southwest flights and about 40 cancellations, though the article cautions that these are a status snapshot and do not isolate the outage's effect. Southwest said Amadeus functionality returned by 12:30 CDT. A Dallas aviation department spokesperson said boarding-pass printing and mobile-app scanning were affected. Amadeus told Nexstar the problem originated with a third-party technology provider, which it did not name, and no failed Altea component was identified. Southwest completed its move to Amadeus Altea in May 2017. The article contrasts the event with American Airlines' nationwide IT ground stop in July, when departures were temporarily paused, whereas Southwest kept operating on manual procedures.