Alaska Airlines restored operations after computer outage

Alaska Airlines has restored operations after grounding all of its flights across the United States on Thursday evening due to a technology outage – its second major IT outage this year.

A temporary stopover has been set up for Alaska and Horizon Air, its regional subsidiary.

The airline told Business Insider that the outage began around 3:30 p.m. PT on Thursday, following an outage in its main data center.

Ground control was lifted eight hours later.

More than 229 flights were canceled as a result of the outage, Alaska said in an X post.

“Additional flight disruptions are likely as we reposition aircraft and crews across our network,” the statement added. “We are working to get our operations back on track as quickly and safely as possible.”

The airline advised its customers to check the status of their flight before going to the airport if they have to fly.

Alaska also postponed its third-quarter earnings conference call, scheduled for Friday morning.

“We do not yet have an estimate of the financial impact of the operational disruption on our fourth quarter results,” it said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The outage came just as Alaska Air reported third-quarter results, showing that a previous IT meltdown in July hurt its bottom line.

In its earnings report, Alaska Air said this led to higher pressure on fuel and non-fuel costs, reducing its full-year profit outlook.

The carrier reported adjusted earnings of $1.05 per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ average estimate of $1.13 per share.

Due to the outage, Alaska has implemented a flexible travel policy for customers who wish to change or cancel their flights.

This applies to tickets purchased on or before Thursday with original travel dates of Thursday through Friday. Travelers can rebook new flights between Thursday and Monday.

Thursday’s outage did not affect Hawaiian Airlines, which merged with Alaska last year. The airline also said the outage was not due to a cybersecurity incident.

The airline said in a statement to Business Insider that “the IT outage affected several of our key systems that allow us to perform various operations, requiring the implementation of a ground shutdown to keep our aircraft in position,” adding that flight safety was not compromised.

Customers took to social media to report problems accessing the airline’s website and mobile app.

“Unfortunately, we are experiencing an error on our system, but our IT team is working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible,” Alaska Airlines said in response to an X user who said they were experiencing issues with the airline’s app.