Alaska Airlines ground stop: Why all flights have been grounded today? First details out

Alaska Airlines on Thursday said it had grounded its flights at all airports. The ground stop also impacted subsidiary Horizon Air, as per an advisory put out by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The airlines requested the ground stop for a period of 1 hour 10 minutes, which would end at 0000 GMT.

Why Alaska Airlines flights were grounded?

The ground stop was put in place due to an unspecified technology outage which ended up impacting all its operations. The airline had briefly grounded all of its flights in July as well, for about three hours, due to an IT outage.

“Alaska Airlines is experiencing an IT outage affecting operations. A temporary ground stop is in place. We apologize for the inconvenience,” Alaska Airlines said in a statement on social media.

“If you’re scheduled to fly tonight, please check your flight status before heading to the airport,” they added.

The airline also responded on social media to customers posting concerns and complaints online.

“Unfortunately, we are experiencing an error on our system, but our IT team is working to get this resolved as soon as possible,” it said, in response to an X user who asked if the airline’s app was also having issues.

Alaska Airlines also issued a similar response to a user who asked about booking problems on the airline’s website. Amid the ground stop, ABC15 Arizona reported that 71 flights were delayed at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

In July, the flights were grounded for about three hours, after which Alaska Airlines had resumed operations. At the time, they said to Reuters: “At approximately 8 PM Pacific on Sunday (0300 GMT on Monday), Alaska Airlines experienced an IT outage that’s impacting our operations. We requested a temporary, system-wide ground stop for Alaska and Horizon Air flights.” Then, too, no specific reason for the IT outage had been provided.

(With Reuters inputs)