The skies have hardly been smooth for Southwest Airlines. A widespread internet outage crippled its dispatching and operations system on Thursday, grounding approximately 1,800 flights and stranding passengers—adding fresh turbulence to the airline's leadership shake-up and strategic overhaul.

Southwest Airlines has been navigating some turbulent times of late. It all got a little bit worse on Thursday when the airline suffered a significant internet outage across its operations. This crippled its dispatching and operations systems, leading to grounded flights, stranded passengers, and rippling delays across its network.

Southwest Airlines experienced system issues due to an internet outage caused the airline to temporarily pause departing flights on Thursday, according to the airlines spokesperson.