Conflict between Southwest passengers turns Oakland-bound flight back to Honolulu

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HONOLULU - An Oakland-bound Southwest flight returned to Honolulu after two passengers were fighting about something.

Not much else is known about the dispute.

All Southwest would say in a statement is that flight 2050 on Tuesday from Honolulu to Oakland returned to Honolulu "due to a conflict between two customers."

Flight Aware showed the plane turned around mid-air, nearly two hours into the five-hour flight.

MORE: Southwest Flight Cancelations: What you may not know about rebooking flights, lost luggage

Hawaii News Now first reported the "behavior of customers," and the fact that the plane eventually arrived at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport just before 9 p.m.

The story started going viral on social media.

"The ONE southwest flight that actually took off - had to return - because of these 2 yahoos???" someone posted on Facebook.

Whatever the conflict was, it appears as though it was a separate problem from the deluge of challenges Southwest has been facing since Christmas.

This week alone, Southwest has canceled nearly 10,000 flights – including 2,500 on Wednesday.

In a video that Southwest posted late Tuesday, CEO Robert Jordan blamed the winter storm on the East Coast for snarling the airline's "highly complex" network and he acknowledged that his company's technology for recovering from disruptions weren't foolproof.

Jordan said Southwest would operate a reduced schedule for several days but hoped to be "back on track before next week."

This story was reported from Oakland, Calif.