Alaska Airlines resumes flights after grounding fleet due to IT outage, carrier says
Alaska Airlines grounded its fleet and that of a subsidiary Sunday night due to IT issues but resumed operations about three hours later, the carrier said.
In a , the carrier said, "At approximately 8 p.m. Pacific on July 20, we experienced an IT outage that resulted in a temporary, system-wide ground stop for Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air flights. As of 11 p.m. Pacific, the ground stop has been lifted, and our operations have resumed.
"As we reposition our aircraft and crews, there will most likely be residual impacts to our flights. It will take some time to get our overall operations back to normal.
"We apologize for the inconvenience and encourage guests to check the status of your flight before leaving for the airport."
The Federal Aviation Administration posted
Alaska said in a statement to CBS News on Monday that "a critical piece of multi-redundant hardware at our data centers" had failed, causing the outage.
"When that happened, it impacted several of our key systems that enable us to run various operations, necessitating the implementation of a ground stop to keep aircraft in position," the airline said. "The safety of our flights was never compromised."
Since Sunday evening, the airline has canceled over 150 flights, including 64 cancellations on Monday, according to the statement.
The airline said the outage wasn't related to a cyberattack last month that hit several carriers, including Alaska's sister airline, Hawaiian Airlines.
The Associated Press notes that Alaska Airlines also briefly grounded its flights in September in Seattle due to what it called "significant disruptions" from an unspecified tech problem.
Alaska Airlines' headquarters are near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
