Prime Highlights
- Horizon Air and Alaska Airlines led the way in a ground stop of all airlines across the country after a debilitating IT shut down operations came to a standstill.
- Systems were restored online within three hours, even though cancellations and delays continued to burden travelers.
Key Facts
- Airplanes Grounded: 238 of their Boeing 737 and 87 Embraer 175 aircraft were grounded.
- Time: The outage had continued for close to three hours when they began restoring partial services.
Key Background
Alaska Airlines was compelled to ground all its planes on July 20 due to a devastating collapse of its IT systems at around 8 p.m. Pacific Time. The collapse brought down Alaska Airlines and regional partner Horizon Air, stopping departures and arrivals of flights across the country. The carrier requested a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ground stop immediately, grounding operations in all U.S. airports within its jurisdiction.
The shutdown impacted over 300 aircraft, with large-scale operational impact in principal terminals like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The passengers were left stranded for hours on planes or in whole terminals. Passengers were mostly given meal vouchers, overnight stays, or rebooking. Passengers were asked to keep receipts in case the flight was refunded and track the flight status before driving to the airports.
It was approximately 11 p.m. Pacific Time that Alaska Airlines released a statement that IT systems were restored and the grounding order was revoked. However, the company warned that other delays, crew scheduling, and flight disruptions will continue tomorrow as normal operations caught up.
This is one of the largest operational incidents for the company in recent times. It follows a string of other incidents, such as in April 2024 where there was a software glitch that temporarily grounded planes and an earlier this year cyberattack on sibling carrier Hawaiian Airlines. They point to increasing exposures to airline IT infrastructure and the need for proper contingency planning and cybersecurity.
Alaska Airlines has opened an investigation into the cause of the outage and assured to do all that could be done to ensure the outages do not occur in the future. Alaska Airlines has also issued a customer apology statement, assuring improved communication and quick fix in case of technical problems.
