Alaska Airlines grounded all its flights on Sunday evening after an IT outage disrupted its systems, marking the second time in just over a year that the carrier has halted its entire fleet. The Seattle-based airline also suspended operations for its subsidiary Horizon Air.
The outage began at approximately 8pm Pacific time (0300 GMT Monday), prompting a temporary, system-wide ground stop requested by the airline. The company did not specify the nature of the outage, but said residual impacts would continue through the evening. The Federal Aviation Administration's status page showed all destinations affected by the ground stop for Alaska's mainline aircraft and Horizon's operations.
This incident follows a similar grounding in April 2024, caused by an issue with the system that calculates aircraft weight and balance. That came months after a door panel on an Alaska-operated Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet blew off mid-air. Alaska Air Group currently operates 238 Boeing 737s and 87 Embraer 175 aircraft.
The outage occurs amid heightened warnings from tech companies Google and Palo Alto Networks about the interest of the hacking group known as "Scattered Spider" in the aviation sector. In June, Canada's WestJet Airlines suffered an unspecified cyber incident, and Australia's Qantas experienced a data breach in July affecting millions of customers.
It remains unclear whether the Alaska outage is linked to Microsoft's announcement on Sunday of "active attacks" on its server software used by government agencies and businesses. Alaska did not immediately respond to a request for comment on a possible connection. The airline also previously faced a hack affecting its subsidiary Hawaiian Airlines in June, the financial impact of which is still being determined.
