Alaska Airlines Restores Operations After IT Outage Grounded All Flights

The carrier said systems were back online after a major nationwide IT failure canceled hundreds of flights.

An Alaska Airlines aircraft flies past the U.S. Capitol before landing at Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va., on Jan. 24, 2022. Reuters/Joshua Roberts

Alaska Airlines said in the early hours of Oct. 24 that it had restored operations following a major technology outage that grounded flights across the United States and led to the cancellation of more than 229 flights.

“Alaska Airlines operations have been restored after a significant IT outage resulted in a system-wide ground stop of flights for Alaska and Horizon,” the carrier said in a statement at about 3:30 a.m. ET on Friday, adding that the ground stop was lifted about one hour earlier.

“We are working to get our operations back on track as quickly and safely as possible,” the company added. “Before heading to the airport, we encourage flyers to check their flight status..”

The airline said a flexible travel policy is in place to accommodate affected passengers as operations return to normal.

Earlier, Alaska Airlines said it had begun to restore operations after an outage forced the airline to ground its flights at all airports nationwide on Thursday evening after an unspecified technology outage impacted its operations.

A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) advisory showed that the grounding also applied to Alaska Airlines’ subsidiary Horizon Air. The ground stop was requested for 1 hour, starting at 8:01 p.m. ET to 9:00 p.m. ET on Oct. 23, the advisory showed.

“Alaska Airlines is experiencing an IT outage affecting operations. A temporary ground stop is in place. We apologize for the inconvenience,” the company said in a social media post. “If you’re scheduled to fly tonight, please check your flight status before heading to the airport.”

Alaska Airlines in July briefly grounded all of its flights for roughly three hours following an IT outage.

The company also grounded its entire fleet in April 2024 to address an issue with a system that calculates the weight and balance of its planes.

“This morning we experienced an issue while performing an upgrade to the system that calculates our weight and balance,” the airline said in a statement at the time. Alaska Airlines added that residual flight delays were expected throughout the day after the FAA lifted the ground stop.

In June, Hawaiian Airlines, which is owned by Alaska Air Group, said some of its IT systems were disrupted by a hack. Alaska Air Group said it is still working to determine the financial impact of that incident.

Alaska Air Group maintains an operational fleet of four Boeing 787s, 34 Airbus A330s, 18 Airbus A321s, 244 Boeing 737s, 19 Boeing 717s, and 89 Embraer 175s, according to the company’s website.

Reuters and Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.