Spirit Airlines blames huge delays and cancellations on a technical issue

About 90% of Spirit Airlines flights were delayed Thursday amid a technical issue affecting the carrier’s website.

In a tweet posted at 8:43 a.m., Spirit said the issue was affecting Spirit.com, the Spirit Airlines app and its airport kiosks, leading to delays.

In an emailed statement at 10:44 a.m., a Spirit spokesman said the issue had been resolved.

‘We have resolved a network issue between third party services that affected our website, mobile app and some internal applications,’ the airline said in a follow-up email. ‘We apologize for any delays and inconvenience, and we’re now working our way back to normal operations.’

According to the flight-tracking site Pulse by Anuvu, fewer than 24% of Spirit flights were departing on time at 10:30 a.m. Thursday.

By about noon, the figure had increased to nearly 90% — with more than 3% of flights canceled.

The glitch represents a worrisome start to the summer travel season as the U.S. airline industry seeks to avoid repeating the turmoil of last year, when carriers were hobbled by delays and cancellations.

And it comes just as the Transportation Security Administration reported that 2023 screening volumes have surpassed 2019 levels — putting even more pressure on airlines to meet booming demand.

In a pre-Memorial Day interview, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg warned, ‘We’re not out of the woods.’

‘We have seen demand come roaring back for air travel — and the system has struggled to keep up,’ he said.