Alaska Airlines resumes operations after IT outage ground planes for hours; 229 flights cancelled

Alaska Airlines has confirmed that its operations have resumed after an information technology (IT) outage forced the airline to ground its planes for hours. In a statement to the news agency AP, the airline said 229 flights were cancelled due to the outage and that additional flight disruptions were expected as it worked to "reposition aircraft and crews." Alaska Airlines said it is working to get travellers to their destinations affected by the interruption and asked passengers to check their flight status before heading to the airport. The latest grounding affected Alaska Air and Horizon Air flights. Hawaiian Airlines, which was acquired by Alaska Air Group last year, said its flights were operating as scheduled.In July, Alaska grounded all of its flights for about three hours after the failure of a critical piece of hardware at a data centre.

Computer problems have disrupted flights across the industry in the past, though disruptions are typically temporary.

Previous instances where airlines were affected due to technical issues

Last month, United Airlines faced a similar outage that caused delays at airports in Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, and Newark, New Jersey. On the morning of September 24, the airline again grounded all flights nationwide due to a “connectivity issue.” The Federal Aviation Administration issued a temporary ground stop at United’s request across the US and Canada between 1 a.m.

and 2:30 a.m. ET, which was lifted after about 30 minutes.The Air Traffic Control System Command Centre cited “COMPANY REQUEST / TECHNOLOGY” as the reason. United later told NBC News it had experienced a brief connectivity issue before midnight Central time but had since resumed normal operations. According to FlightAware, 42 flights were delayed and four cancelled between 12 a.m. and 4 a.m. ET, with Los Angeles International Airport most affected.