Alaska Airlines flights grounded: US aircraft operator reveals details of nationwide outage

Alaska Airlines, popular US aircraft operator, issued a ground stop for all their flights on Sunday. The airline implemented a fleet-wide grounding order for aircraft operating under its primary brand, according to a Federal Aviation Administration notice.

It later announced that they took the decision due to some issues they were experiencing with their IT systems. The company page notes it has an operational fleet of 238 Boeing 737 aircraft, and 87 Embraer 175 aircraft, taking the total to 325.

Thousands of passengers were affected by knock-on delays and cancellations continuing into Monday as the airline scrambles to resume service.


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Alaska Airlines flights grounded

The company implemented a ground stop for all its aircraft—including those operated under the Horizon Air brand—around 8 p.m. PT. Although the issue was resolved approximately three hours later, passengers are being cautioned that delays and cancellations are continuing as a result.

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Alaska Airlines has revealed that an "unexpected failure" of a critical piece of hardware caused an IT outage due to which its entire fleet had to be temporarily grounded on Sunday, reports NewsWeek. The airline first announced news of the IT outage across its social media channels on Sunday evening, and continued to update passengers through the night.

The Alaska Airlines' newsroom account on X 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." But, the company warned: "It will take some time to get our overall operations back to normal."

Responding to the incident, Alaska Airlines told Newsweek in a statement on Monday: "We're working to get our operations back on track today at Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air after a significant IT outage Sunday night resulted in a system-wide ground stop of flights, which was lifted at 11 p.m. Pacific.

"A critical piece of multi-redundant hardware at our data centers, manufactured by a third-party, experienced an unexpected failure. 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 safety of our flights was never compromised."

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The airline added: "Since Sunday evening, we've had more than 150 flight cancellations, including 64 cancellations today. Additional flight disruptions are likely as we reposition aircraft and crews throughout our network.

"The IT outage is not related to any other current events, and it's not connected to the recent cybersecurity incident at Hawaiian Airlines.

"We are currently working with our vendor to replace the hardware equipment at the data center.

"We appreciate the patience of our guests whose travel plans have been disrupted. We're working to get them to their destinations as quickly as we can. Before heading to the airport, we encourage flyers to check their flight status."

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Alaska Airlines resumes operations

Alaska Airlines resumed operations late Sunday about three hours after having requested a ground stop for all of its flights, according to the airline and FAA.

Each year, millions of travelers choose Alaska Airlines, which flew approximately 41.5 million passengers in 2022 as the travel industry steadily rebounded from the pandemic downturn.

However, a three-hour IT outage on Sunday night disrupted operations, leading to widespread delays and over 150 flight cancellations—64 of which occurred on Monday alone. Passengers are urged to monitor Alaska Airlines' social media channels for the latest updates and to confirm their flight status before heading to the airport to avoid unexpected disruptions.