Alaska Airlines says flight disruptions are ‘likely' after IT outage, ground stop

Alaska Airlines says their flight operations have been restored after a “significant IT outage” led to a system-wide ground stop of hundreds of Alaska and Horizon flights.

The ground stop was announced by Alaska about 6:20 p.m. CT Thursday. It was lifted about 1:30 a.m. CT, according to the airline.

“We are working to get our operations back on track as quickly and safely as possible,” an overnight statement from Alaska Airlines said.

According to the airline, the outage led to more than 229 cancellations. Additional flight disruptions were “likely” as the airline worked to reposition crews and aircraft throughout its network, the statement said.

“We appreciate the patience of our guests whose travel plans have been disrupted,” Alaska said. “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.”

Alaska added that a flexible travel policy is in place for those traveling.

What Alaska says happened

The airline said in a statement to NBC that the issue began with a failure at their primary data center.

“The IT outage has impacted several of our key systems that enable us to run various operations, necessitating the implementation of the ground stop to keep our aircraft in position,” Alaska said Thursday. “The safety of our flights was never compromised. The IT outage is not a cybersecurity event, and it’s not related to any other events.”

The airline posted on its website that customers trying to reach the contact could experience longer than normal wait times, and that flights may be delayed or canceled as it works to return to normal operations.