Alaska Airlines grounds all flights for about three hours due to an IT outage
- Mark Sabbatini
- Jul 20
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 21
Airline states "it will take some time to get our overall operations back to normal"
Alaska Airlines grounded all of its flights for about three hours Sunday night due to a software outage of an unspecified nature.
The grounding of more than 200 planes, including those of affiliate Horizon Air, started at about 7 p.m. Alaska time and ended at about 10 p.m., according to statements issued by the airline during the evening.
"At approximately 8 p.m. Pacific on Sunday (0300 GMT on Monday), Alaska Airlines experienced an IT outage that's impacting our operations," the airline noted in an initial announcement. "We requested a temporary, system-wide ground stop for Alaska and Horizon Air flights."
After resuming flights, the airline in a subsequent social media post stated "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."
Pat Bock, a Juneau resident waiting to catch a flight home from Seattle that was supposed to depart at 6:36 p.m. Alaska time, said the departure was rescheduled for about 10:30 p.m. — but as of that time her flight hadn’t been yet called, although flights to other destinations were starting to take off. One of the complications, she said, appeared to be "the captain and first officer had timed out."
The grounding affected several inbound and outbound flights at Juneau International Airport. The first indication of flights resuming occurred when Flight 84 for Anchorage took off at 9:34 p.m., nearly four hours later than scheduled, according to Flightradar24.
Reuters reported Alaska Air Group-owned Hawaiian Airlines had some IT systems disrupted by a hack in June. The company is still determining the financial impact of the hack.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
