Southwest site hobbled by air-sale traffic

If you found yourself unable to access Southwest's site to score tickets yesterday there's a reason.
The discount carrier's big 48-hour fall sale, which featured the cheapest fares the airline has offered since 1996, drew so much traffic that it hobbled the company's website for about five hours yesterday.
The airline, which will begin service from Logan in the middle of next month, launched the sale Monday and it ended yesterday. Paul Flaningan, a company spokesman, told Bloomberg News that portions of the website went down about 9:30 a.m. and were restored by about 2:40 p.m.
Southwest offered mea culpas but decided that it would NOT extend the sale to make up for lost time due to the techical hiccup.
The sale, which was atypical in that fall discounts aren't usually offered till later in the summer, kicked off a mini-price war as most of the major carriers rushed to match fares on competitive routes.
The lesson here, if any, is that these days sales pop up quickly -- and disappear as quickly. So if you're in the market for travel the best deals often go to those who act quickly.

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