An IT outage led to Alaska Airlines grounding all its flights for nearly three hours on Sunday night — leaving worried passengers “shaken” amid the ongoing travel chaos.
Alaska Airlines stated that the IT outage resulted in a “temporary, system-wide ground stop for Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air flights” at around 11 p.m. ET and lasted til 2 a.m. on Monday, the airline wrote in a statement on X.
“The ground stop has been lifted, and our operations have resumed,” the Seattle-based airline said. “As we reposition our aircraft and crews, there will most likely be residual impacts to our flights.”
Airline officials shared that it will “take some time to get our overall operations back to normal.”
Alaska Airlines advised travelers to check the status of their flight before leaving for the airport.
“We apologize for the inconvenience and encourage guests to check the status of your flight before leaving for the airport,” the airline concluded.
It remains unclear what caused the IT outage.
The Post has reached out to Alaska Airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration for comment.
Some passengers flying out of Portland International Airport, affected by the grounding, told KOIN 6 News that they were instructed to keep their receipts for hotels and cars to be reimbursed.
Others were told they would be rebooked for a Monday flight.
Passenger Jaclyn Martin said she waited on a boarded flight for about an hour before being told to deplane.
Martin said the experience left her confidence “a bit shaken.”
“I don’t fly a lot. So, you know, I guess we’ll see what happens,” she told KOIN 6 News.
Another passenger described confusion among Alaska Airlines staff during the outage.
“They just saw a network system error, and they couldn’t figure out any more than we could. So they said, maybe try to the 1-800 number and see if that helps. And it was a 2.5 hour wait time for that,” Ben DeCarlow said, adding the airline officials “were very apologetic” during the incident.
The IT outage follows an announcement by Alaska Air Group-owned Hawaiian Airlines in June that some of its IT systems had been disrupted by a hack.
Alaska Air Group stated that it was still determining the financial impact of the June 26 event.
In April 2024, the airlines grounded flights after the system that calculated the balance of the plane had ongoing issues.
“There has been no impact on safety, and the airline continues to operate safely. We are monitoring the situation,” the FAA said in a statement about the hack.
The news of Alaska’s IT issues comes at a time when tech companies Google and Palo Alto Networks have warned of the “Scattered Spider” hacking group’s interest in the aviation sector.
with Post wires